


Get Out

by taciturnmilk



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Also Pay Attention To The Dates Because It Kind Of Goes Backwards And It's Confusing, And More On Plot, Angst, Because Honestly I Can't Keep Up Myself, Blood, Eliza Is Badass, F/M, Gen, Hamilton Is Not Really Much Of A Character, He's In Like Two Chapters, Murder, Ripley AU, So If That's Why You're Here Bye I Guess, Suicide, Suicide mentions, Talented Mr Ripley, This Fic Is Less Centered On Relationships, This Is Really Complicated, Violence, trigger warning, try to keep up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-02-17 19:35:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 24
Words: 27,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13083900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taciturnmilk/pseuds/taciturnmilk
Summary: Theodosia is an heiress, a runaway, and a cheat.Eliza is a fighter, a chameleon, and a liar.Theodosia is done pretending to be perfect, and Eliza refuses to go back to the person she once was. Somewhere between the mansions of Martha’s Vineyard and the shores of Cabo San Lucas, their friendship takes a dark turn.





	1. Chapter 1

**THIRD WEEK IN JUNE, 2017**   
**CABO SAN LUCAS, MEXICO**

It was a bloody great hotel.

The minibar in Eliza’s room stocked potato chips and four different chocolate bars. The bathtub had bubble jets. There was an endless supply of fat towels and liquid gardenia soap. In the lobby, an elderly gentleman played Gershwin on a grand piano at four each afternoon. You could get hot clay skin treatments, if you didn’t mind strangers touching you. Eliza’s skin smelled like chlorine all day.

The Playa Grande Resort in Baja had white curtains, white tile, white carpets, and explosions of lush white flowers. The staff members were nurse-like in their white cotton garments. Eliza had been alone at the hotel for nearly four weeks now. She was eighteen years old.

This morning, she was running in the Playa Grande gym. She wore custom sea-green shoes with navy laces. She ran without music. She had been doing intervals for nearly an hour when a woman stepped onto the treadmill next to hers.

This woman was younger than thirty. Her brown hair, almost black, was in a tight ponytail, slicked with hairspray. She had big arms and a solid torso, light brown skin, and a dusting of powdery blush on her cheeks. Her shoes were down at the heels and spattered with old mud.

No one else was in the gym.

Eliza slowed to a walk, figuring to leave in a minute. She liked privacy, and she was pretty much done, anyway.

“You training?” the woman asked. She gestured at Eliza’s digital readout. “Like, for a marathon or something?” The accent was Mexican American. She was probably a New Yorker raised in a Spanish-speaking neighbourhood.

“I ran track in secondary school. That’s all.” Eliza’s own speech was clipped, what the British call BBC English.

The woman gave her a penetrating look. “I like your accent,” she said. “Where you from?”

“London. St. John’s Wood.”

“New York.” The woman pointed to herself.

Eliza stepped off the treadmill to stretch her quads.

“I’m here alone,” the woman confided after a moment. “Got in last night. I booked this hotel at the last minute. You been here long?”

“It’s never long enough,” said Eliza, “at a place like this.”

“So what do you recommend? At the Playa Grande?”

Eliza didn’t often talk to other hotel guests, but she saw no harm in answering. “Go on the snorkel tour,” she said. “I saw a bloody huge moray eel.”

“No kidding. An eel?”

“The guide tempted it with fish guts he had in a plastic milk jug. The eel swam out from the rocks. It must have been eight feet long. Bright green.”

The woman shivered. “I don’t like eels.”

“You could skip it. If you scare easy.”

The woman laughed. “How’s the food? I didn’t eat yet.”

“Get the chocolate cake.”

“For breakfast?”

“Oh, yeah. They’ll bring it to you special, if you ask.”

“Good to know. You traveling alone?”

“Listen, I’m gonna jet,” said Eliza, feeling the conversation had turned personal. “Cheerio.” She headed for the door.

“My dad’s crazy sick,” the woman said, talking to Eliza’s back. “I’ve been looking after him for a long time.”

A stab of sympathy. Eliza stopped and turned.

“Every morning and every night after work, I’m with him,” the woman went on. “Now he’s finally stable, and I wanted to get away so badly I didn’t think about the price tag. I’m blowing a lot of cash here I shouldn’t blow.”

“What’s your father got?”

“MS,” said the woman. “Multiple sclerosis? And dementia. He used to be the head of our family. Very macho. Strong in all his opinions. Now he’s a twisted body in a bed. He doesn’t even know where he is half the time. He’s, like, asking me if I’m the waitress.”

“Damn.”

“I’m scared I’m gonna lose him and I hate being with him, both at the same time. And when he’s dead and I’m an orphan, I know I’m going to be sorry I took this trip away from him, d’you know?” The woman stopped running and put her feet on either side of the treadmill. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Sorry. Too much information.”

“S’okay.”

“You go on. Go shower or whatever, Maybe I’ll see you around later.”

The woman pushed up the arms of her long-sleeved shirt and turned to the digital readout of her treadmill. A scar wound down her right forearm, jagged, like from a knife, not clean like from an operation. There was a story there.

“Listen, do you like to play trivia?” Eliza asked, against her better judgement.

A smile. White but crooked teeth. “I’m excellent at trivia, actually.”

“They run it every other night in the lounge downstairs,” said Eliza. “It’s pretty much rubbish. You wanna go?”

“What kind of rubbish?”

“Good rubbish. Silly and loud.”

“Okay. Yeah, all right.”

“Good,” said Eliza. “We’ll kill it. You’ll be glad you took a vacation. I’m strong on superheroes, spy movies, YouTubers, fitness, money, makeup, and Victorian writers. What about you?”

“Victorian writers? Like Dickens?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Eliza felt her face flush. It suddenly seemed an odd set of things to be interested in.

“I love Dickens.”

“Get out.”

“I do.” The woman smiled again. “I’m good on Dickens, cooking, current events, politics… let’s see, oh, and cats.”

“All right, then,” said Eliza. “It starts at eight o’clock in that lounge off the main lobby. The bar with sofas.”

“Eight o’clock. You’re on.” The woman walked over and extended her hand. “What’s your name again? I’m Maria.”

Eliza shook it. “I didn’t tell you my name,” she said. “But it’s Theodosia.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hiya hdhf please leave comments an kudos n shit i hope you like!


	2. Chapter 2

Eliza Schuyler was nice-enough-looking. She hardly ever got labelled ugly, nor was she commonly labelled hot. She was short, only five-foot-one, and carried herself with an uptilted chin. Her hair was in a gamine cut, green eyes, white skin, light freckles. In most of her clothes, you couldn’t see the strength of her frame. Eliza had muscles that puffed off her bones in powerful arcs—like she’d been drawn by a comic-book artist, especially in the legs. There was a hard panel of abdominal muscle under a layer of fat in her midsection. She liked to eat meat and salt and chocolate and grease.

Eliza believed that the more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle.

She believed that the best way to avoid having your heart broken was to pretend you don’t have one.

She believed that the way you speak is often more important than anything you have to say.

She also believed in action movies, weight training, the power of makeup, memorisation, equal rights, and the idea that YouTube videos can teach you a million things you won’t learn in college.

If she trusted you, Eliza would tell you she went to Stanford for a year on a track-and-field scholarship. “I got recruited,” she explained to people she liked. “Stanford is Division One. The school gave me money for tuition, books, all that.”

What happened?

Eliza might shrug. “I wanted to study Victorian literature and sociology, but the head coach was a perv,” she’d say. “Touching all the girls. When he got around to me, I kicked him where it counts and told everybody who would listen. Professors, students, the Stanford Daily. I shouted it to the top of the stupid ivory tower, but you know what happens to athletes who tell tales on their coaches.”

She’d twist her fingers together and lower her eyes. “The other girls on the team denied it,” she’d say. “They said I was lying and that pervert never touched anybody. They didn’t want their parents to know, and they were afraid they’d lose their scholarships. That’s how the story ended. The coach kept his job. I quit the team. That meant I didn’t get my financial aid. And that’s how you make a dropout of a straight-A student.”

• • •

After the gym, Eliza swam a mile in the Playa Grande pool and spent the rest of the morning as she often did, sitting in the business lounge, watching Spanish instruction videos. She was still in her bathing suit, but she wore her sea-green running shoes. She’d put on hot pink lipstick and some silver eyeliner. The suit was a gunmetal one-piece with a hoop at the chest and a deep plunge. It was a very Marvel Universe look.

The lounge was air-conditioned. No one else was ever in there. Eliza put her feet up and wore headphones and drank Diet Coke.

After two hours of Spanish she ate a Snickers bar for lunch and watched music videos. She danced around on her caffeine jag, singing to the line of swivel chairs in the empty lounge. Life was bloody gorgeous today. She liked that sad woman running away from her sick father, the woman with the interesting scar and the surprising taste in books.

They would kill it at trivia.

Eliza drank another Diet Coke. She checked her makeup and kick-boxed her own image in the reflective glass of the lounge window. Then she laughed aloud, because she looked both foolish and awesome. All the while, the beat pulsed in her ears.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for anyone who's already read, sorry for all the edits hhdh i'm just trying to figure out what format fits best,,
> 
> also yikes this is super dialogue heavy sorry;
> 
> enjoy!

The poolside bartender, Charlie, was a local guy. He was big-boned but soft. Slick hair. Given to winking at the clientele. He spoke English with the accent particular to Baja and knew Eliza’s drink: A Diet Coke with a shot of vanilla syrup.

Some afternoons, Charlie asked Eliza about growing up in London. Eliza practiced her Spanish. They’d watch movies on the screen above the bar as they talked.

Today, at three in the afternoon, Eliza perched on the corner stool, still wearing her swimsuit. Charlie wore a Playa Grande white blazer and T-shirt. Stubble was growing on the back of his neck. “What’s the movie?” she asked him, looking up at the TV.

“Hulk.”

“Which Hulk?”

“I don’t know.”

“You put the DVD in. How can you not know?”

“I don’t even know there’s two Hulks.”

“There’s three Hulks. Wait, I take that back. Multiple Hulks. If you count TV, cartoons, all that.”

“I don’t know which Hulk it is, Ms. Schuyler.”

The movie went on for a bit. Charlie rinsed glasses and wiped the counter. He made a scotch and soda for a woman who took it off to the other end of the pool area.

“It’s the second-best Hulk,” said Eliza, when she had his attention again. “What’s the word for Scotch in Spanish?”

“Esoćes.”

“Esoćes. What’s a good kind to get?”

“You never drink.”

“But if I did.”

“Macallan,” Charlie said, shrugging. “You want me to pour you a sample?”

He filled five shot glasses with different brands of high-end Scotch. He explained about Scotches and whiskeys and why you’d order one and not the other. Eliza tasted each but didn’t drink much.

“This one smells like BO,” she told him.

“You’re crazy.”

“And this one smells like lighter fluid.”

He bent over the glass to smell it. “Maybe.”

She pointed to the third. “Dog piss, like from a really angry dog.”

Charlie laughed. “What do the others smell like?” he asked.

“Dried blood,” Eliza said. “And that powder you use to clean bathrooms. Cleaning powder.”

“Which one d’you like the best?”

“The dried blood,” she said, sticking her finger in the glass and tasting it again. “Tell me what it’s called.”

“That’s the Macallan.” Charlie cleared the glasses. “Oh, and I forgot to say: a woman asking about you earlier. Or maybe not you. She might have been confused.”

“What woman?”

“A Mexican lady. Speaking Spanish. She asked about a white American girl with short black hair, traveling alone,” said Charlie. “She said freckles.” He touched his face. “Across the nose.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I said it’s a big resort. Lots of Americans. I don’t know who’s staying alone and who’s not.”

“I’m not American,” said Eliza.

“I know. So I told her I hadn’t seen anyone like that.”

“That’s what you said?”

“Yeah.”

“But you still thought of me.”

He looked at Eliza for a long minute. “I did think of you,” he said finally. “I’m not stupid, Ms. Schuyler.”

• • •

Maria knew she was American.

That meant Maria was a cop. Or something. Had to be.

She had set Eliza up, with all that talk. The ailing father, Dickens, becoming an orphan. Maria had known exactly what to say. She had laid that bait out— “my father is crazy sick”—and Eliza had snapped it up, hungry.

Eliza’s face felt hot. She’d been lonely and weak and just bloody stupid, to fall for Maria’s lines. It was all a ruse, so Eliza would see Maria as a confidante, not an adversary.

Eliza walked back to her room, looking as relaxed as she could. Once inside, she grabbed her valuables from the safe. She put on jeans, boots, and a T-shirt and threw as many clothes as would fit into her smallest suitcase. The rest she left behind. On the bed, she laid a hundred-dollar tip for Sally, the maid she sometimes talked to. Then she wheeled the suitcase down the hall and tucked it next to the ice machine.

Back at the poolside bar, Eliza told Charlie where the case was. She pushed a US twenty-dollar bill across the counter.

Asked a favour.

She pushed another twenty across and gave instructions.


	4. Chapter 4

In the staff parking lot, Eliza looked around and found the bartender’s little blue sedan, unlocked. She got in and lay down on the floor in the back. It was littered with empty plastic bags and coffee cups.

She had an hour to wait before Charlie finished his bar shift. With luck, Maria wouldn’t realise anything was amiss until Eliza was seriously late for trivia night, maybe around eight-thirty. Then she’d investigate the airport shuttle and the cab company records before thinking of the staff lot.

It was airless and hot in the car. Eliza listened for footsteps.

Her shoulder cramped. She was thirsty.

Charlie would help her, right?

He would. He had already covered for her. He’d told Maria he didn’t know anyone like that. He warned Eliza and promised to collect the suitcase and give her a ride. She had paid him, too.

Besides, Charlie and Eliza were friends.

Eliza stretched her knees straight, one at a time, then folded herself back up in the space behind the seats.

She thought about what she was wearing, then took off her earrings and her jade ring, shoving them into her jeans pocket. She forced herself to calm her breathing.

Finally, there was the sound of a suitcase on rollers. The slam of the trunk. Charlie slipped behind the wheel, started the car, and pulled out of the lot. Eliza stayed on the floor as he drove. The road had few streetlights. There was Mexican pop on the radio.

“Where d’you want to go?” Charlie asked eventually.

“Anywhere in town.”

“I’m going home, then.” His voice sounded predatory all of a sudden.

Damn. Was she wrong to have gotten in his car? Was Charlie one of those guys who thinks a girl who wants a favour has to mess around with him?

“Drop me a ways from where you live,” she told him sharply. “I’ll take care of myself.”

“You don’t have to say it like that,” he said. “I’m putting myself out for you right now.”

• • •

Imagine this: a sweet house sits on the outskirts of a town in Alabama. One night, eight-year-old Eliza wakes up in the dark. Did she hear a noise?

She isn’t sure. The house is quiet.

She goes downstairs in a thin pink nightgown.

On the ground floor, a spike of cold fear goes through her. The living room is trashed, books and papers everywhere. The office is even worse. File cabinets have been tipped over. The computers are gone.

“Mama? Papa?” Little Eliza runs back upstairs to look in her parents’ room.

Their beds are empty.

Now she is truly frightened. She slams open the bathroom. They aren’t there. She sprints outside.

The yard is ringed with looming trees. Little Eliza is halfway down the walkway when she realises what she’s seeing there, in the circle of light created by a streetlamp.

Mama and Papa lie in the grass, facedown. Their bodies are crumpled and limp. The blood pools black underneath them. Mama has been shot through the brain. She must have died instantly. Papa is clearly dead, but the only injuries Eliza can see are on his arms. He must have bled out from his wounds. He is curled around Mama, as if he thought of only her in his last moments.

Eliza runs back into the house to call the police. The phone line is disconnected.

She returns to the yard, wanting to say a prayer, wanting to say goodbye, at least—but her parents’ bodies have disappeared. Their killer has taken them away.

She does not let herself cry. She sits for the rest of the night in that circle of light from the streetlamp, soaking her nightgown in thickening blood.

For the next two weeks, Little Eliza is alone in that ransacked house. She stays strong. She cooks for herself and sorts through the papers left behind, looking for clues. As she reads the documents, she pieces together lives of heroism, power and secret identities.

One afternoon she is in the attic, looking at old photographs, when a woman in black appears in the room.

The woman steps forward, but Little Eliza is quick. She throws a letter opener, hard and fast, but the woman catches it left-handed. Little Eliza climbs a pile of boxes, grabs an overhead beam, and pulls herself onto it. She runs across the beam and squeezes through a high window onto the roof. Panic thuds in her chest.

The woman takes after her. Eliza leaps from the roof to the branches of a neighbouring tree and breaks off a sharp stick to use as a weapon. She holds it in her mouth as she climbs down. She is sprinting into the underbrush when the woman shoos her in the ankle.

The pain is intense. Little Eliza is sure that her parents’ killer has come to finish her off—but the woman in black helps her up and tends the wound. She removes the bullet and treats the injury with antiseptic.

As she bandages, the woman explains that she is a recruiter. She has been watching these past two weeks. Not only is Eliza the child of two exceptionally skilled people, she is a remarkable intellect with a fierce survival instinct. The woman wants to train Eliza and help her seek revenge. Since she is something of a long-lost aunt, she knows the secrets those parents kept from their beloved only daughter.

Here begins a highly unusual education. Eliza goes to a specialised academy housed in a renovated mansion on an ordinary street in New York City. She learns surveillance techniques, performs backflips, and masters the removal of handcuffs and straitjackets. She wears leather pants and loads her pockets with gadgets. There are lessons in foreign languages, social customs, literature, martial arts, the use of firearms, disguises, various accents, methods of forgery, and fine points of the law. The education lasts ten years. By the time it is complete, Eliza has become the kind of woman it would be a great mistake to underestimate.

That was the origin story of Eliza Schuyler. By the time she was living at the Playa Grande, Eliza preferred it to any other story she might tell about herself.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uh there's some violence in this but not gory so mmh
> 
> sorry it's short hh

Charlie stopped and opened the driver’s-side door. The light came on inside the car.

“Where are we?” Eliza asked. It was dark outside.

“San José del Cabo.”

“This where you live?”

“Not too close.”

Eliza was relieved, but it seemed very black out. Shouldn’t there be streetlights and businesses, lit up for the tourist crowd? “Anyone nearby?” she asked.

“I parked in an alley so you wouldn’t be seen getting out of my car.”

Eliza crawled out. Her muscles were stiff and her face felt coated in grease. The alley was lined with garbage bins. There was light only from a couple of second-story windows. “Thanks for the ride. Pop the trunk, will you?”

“You said a hundred dollars American when I got you to town.”

“Of course.” Eliza took her wallet from her back pocket and paid.

“But now it’s more,” Charlie added.

“What?”

“Three hundred more.”

“I thought we were friends.”

He took a step toward her. “I make you drinks because it’s my job. I pretend to like talking to you, because that’s my job, too. You think I don’t see how you look down at me? Second-best Hulk. What kind of scotch. We’re not friends, Ms. Schuyler. You’re lying to me half the time, I’m lying to you all the time.” She could smell liquor spilled on his shirt. His breath was hot in her face.

Eliza had honestly believed he liked her. They had shared jokes and he’d given her free potato chips. “Wow,” she said quietly.

“Another three hundred,” he said.

Was he a small-time hustler jacking a girl who was carrying a lot of American dollars? Or was he a sleazeball who thought she’d rub up against him rather than give him the extra three hundred? Could Maria have paid him off?

Eliza tucked her wallet back in her pocket. She shifted the strap so her bag went across her chest. “Charlie?” she stepped forward, close. She looked up at him with big eyes.

Then she brought her right forearm up hard, snapped his head back, and punched him in the groin. He doubled over. Eliza grabbed his slick hair and yanked his head back. She twisted him around, forcing him off balance. 

He jabbed with one elbow, slamming Eliza in the chest. It hurt, but the second thrust of the elbow missed as she side-stepped, grabbed that elbow, and twisted it behind Charlie’s back. His arm was soft, repulsive. She held on tight and with her free hand snatched her money out of his greedy fingers.

She shoved the cash into her jeans pocket and jerked Charlie’s elbow hard while she tapped his hip pockets, looking for his phone.

Not there. Back pocket, then.

She found it and shoved the phone down her bra for lack of anywhere else. Now he couldn’t call Maria with her location, but he still had the car keys in his left hand.

Charlie kicked out, hitting her in the shin. Eliza punched him in the side of the neck and he crumpled forward. One hard shove and Charlie hit the ground. He started to push himself up, but Eliza grabbed a metal lid from one of the nearby trash cans and banged it on his head twice and he collapsed on a pile of garbage bags, bleeding for the forehead and one eye.

Eliza backed out of his reach. She still held the lid. “Drop your keys.”

Moaning, Charlie extended his left hand and tossed them so they landed a couple of inches from his body.

Eliza grabbed the keys and popped the trunk. Then she took her rolling suitcase and sprinted down the street before Charlie could stand up.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: crocs and hamilton are mentioned

She slowed to a walk as soon as she hit the main road in San José del Cabo and checked her shirt. It looked clean enough. She wiped her hand slowly and calmly over her face, in case there was anything on it—dirt, spit or blood. She pulled a compact out of her bag and checked herself as she moved, using the mirror to look over her shoulder.

There was no one behind her.

She put on matte pink lipstick, snapped her compact shut, and slowed her pace even more.

She couldn’t look like she was running from anything.

The air was warm, and music thumped from inside the bars. Tourists milled around in front of many of them—white, black, and Mexican, all drunk and loud. Cheap vacation crowds. Eliza tossed Charlie’s keys and phone in a trash can. She looked for a cab or a supercabos bus but didn’t see either.

Okay, then.

She needed to hide and change, in case Charlie came after her. He would pursue her if he was working for Maria. Or if he wanted revenge.

Picture yourself, now, on film. Shadows flit across your smooth skin as you walk. There are bruises forming underneath your clothes, but your hair looks excellent. You’re armed with gadgets, thin shards of metal that perform outrageous feats of technology and assault. You carry poisons and antidotes.

You are the centre of the story. You and no one else. You’ve got that interesting origin tale, that unusual education. Now you’re ruthless, you’re brilliant, you’re practically fearless. There’s a body count behind you, because you do whatever’s required to stay alive—but it’s a day’s work, that’s all.

You look superb in the light from the Mexican bar windows. After a fight, your cheeks are flushed. And oh, your clothes are so very flattering.

Yes, it’s true that you are criminally violent. Brutal, even. But that’s your job and you’re uniquely qualified, so it’s sexy.

Eliza watched a shit-ton of movies. She knew that women were rarely the centres of such stories. Instead, they were the eye candy, arm candy, victims, or love interests. Mostly, they existed to help the great white hetero hero on his fucking epic journey. When there was a heroine, she weighed very little, wore very little, and had had her teeth fixed.

Eliza knew she didn’t look like those women. She would never look like those women. But she was everything those heroes were, and in some ways, she was more.

She knew that, too.

She reached the third Cabo bar and ducked inside. It was furnished with picnic tables and had taxidermied fish on the walls. The customers were mainly Americans, getting sloshed after a day of sport fishing. Eliza pushed quickly to the back, glanced over her shoulder, and went into the men’s room.

It was empty. She ducked into a stall. Charlie would never look for her here.

The toilet seat was wet and coated yellow. Eliza dug in her suitcase until she found a wig—a sleek bob a few shades darker than her natural hair, with bangs. She put it on, wiped off her lipstick, applied a dark gloss, and powdered her nose. She buttoned a black cotton cardigan over her white T-shirt.

A guy came in and used the stall next to hers. She looked at his shoes.

It was Charlie.

Those were his dirty white Crocs. Those were his nurse-like Playa Grande trousers. Eliza’s blood pounded in her ears.

She quietly picked her suitcase up off the floor and held it so he couldn’t see it. She stayed motionless.

Charlie flushed and Eliza heard him shuffle to the sink. He ran the water.

Another guy came in. “Could I borrow your phone?” Charlie asked in English. “Just a quick call.”

“Someone beat you up, man?” The other guy had an American accent, Californian. “You look like you been through it.”

“I’m fine,” said Charlie. “I just need a phone.”

“I don’t have calls here, just texting,” the guy said. “I have to get back to my buddies.”

“I’m not going to steal it,” said Charlie. “I just need to— “

“I said no, okay? But I wish you well, dude.” The other guy left without using the facilities.

Did Charlie want the phone because he had no car keys and needed a ride? Or because he wanted to call Maria?

He breathed heavily, as if in pain. He didn’t run the water again.

Finally, he left.

Eliza set the suitcase down. She shook her hands to get the blood moving again and stretched her arms behind her back. Still in the stall, she counted her money, both pesos and dollars. She checked her wig in her compact mirror.

When she felt certain Charlie was gone, Eliza walked out of the men’s room, confident, no big thing, and headed for the street. Outside, she pushed through the crowds of partiers to a corner and found herself in luck. A taxi pulled up. She jumped in and asked for the Grand Solmar, the resort next to Playa Grande.

At the Grand Solmar she got a second taxi easily. She asked the new driver to take her to a cheap, locally owned place in town. He drove her to the Cabo Inn.

It was a dive. Cheap walls, dirty paint, plastic furniture, plastic flowers on the counter. Eliza checked in under a false name and paid the clerk in pesos. He didn’t ask for ID.

Up in the room, she used the small coffeemaker to brew a cup of decaf. She put three sugars in. She sat on the edge of the bed.

Did she need to run?

No.

Yes.

No.

Nobody knew where she was. No one on earth. That fact should have made her happy. She had wanted to disappear, after all.

But she felt afraid.

She wished for Alexander. Wished for Theodosia.

Wished she could undo everything that had happened.

If only she could go back in time, Eliza felt, she would be a better person. Or a different person. She would be more herself. Or maybe less herself. She didn’t know which, because she didn’t any longer know what shape her own self was, or whether there was really no Eliza at all, but only a series of selves she presented for different contexts.

Where all people like that, with no true self?

Or was it only Eliza?

She didn’t know if she could love her own mangled, strange heart. She wanted someone else to do it for her, to see it beating behind her ribs and to say, I can see your true self. It is there, and it is rare and worthy. I love you.

How dark and stupid it was to be mangled and strange, to be no particular shape, to have no self when life was stretching out before her. Eliza had many rare talents. She worked hard and really had so damn much to offer. She knew all that.

So why did she feel worthless at the same time?

She wanted to call Theodosia. She wished she could hear Theo’s low laugh and her run-on sentences spilling out secrets. She wished she could say to Theodosia, I’m scared. And Theo would say, But you’re brave, Eliza. You’re the bravest person I know.

She wished Alexander would come and put his arms around her, telling her as he had once that she was a top-notch, excellent person.

She wanted there to be someone who loved her unconditionally, someone who would forgive her anything. Or better, someone who knew everything already and loved her for it. 

Neither Alexander nor Theo was capable of that.  
Still, Eliza remembered the feel of Alexander’s lips on hers, and the smell of Theo’s jasmine perfume.


	7. Chapter 7

Wearing the black wig, Eliza went downstairs to the Cabo Inn’s business office. She had thought out her strategy. The office was closed this time of night, but she tipped the desk clerk to open it for her. On the computer, she booked a flight out of San José del Cabo to Los Angeles for the next morning. She used her own name and charged it on her usual credit card, the same one she’d been using at the Playa Grande.

Then she asked the clerk where she could buy a car for cash. He said there was a dealer who worked out of a backyard who could sell her something in the morning for American dollars. He wrote own an address, on Ortiz off Ejido, he said.

Maria was tracking credit cards. She had to be, or she’d never had found Eliza. Now the detective would see the new charge and go to LA. Eliza herself would buy a car for cash and drive toward Cancùn. From Cancùn, she’d make her way eventually to the island of Culebra in Puerto Rico, where there would be loads of Americans who never showed their passports to anyone.

She thanked the clerk for the information about the car dealer. “You’re not going to remember our conversation, are you?” she said, pushing another twenty across the counter to him.

“I might.”

“No, you won’t.” She added a fifty.

“I never saw you,” he said.

The sleep was bad. Even worse than usual. Dreams of drowning in warm turquoise water. Dreams of abandoned cats walking across her body as she slept; dreams of strangulation by serpent. Eliza work up screaming.

She drank water. Took a cold shower.

Slept and woke up screaming again.

At five a.m., she stumbled to the bathroom, splashed water on her face, and lined her eyes. Why not? She liked makeup. She had time. She layered concealer and powder, added smoky shadow, then mascara and a nearly black lipstick with a gloss over it.

She rubbed gel into her hair an got dressed. Black jeans, boots again, and a dark T-shirt. Too warm for the Mexican heat, but practical. She packed her suitcase, drank a bottle of water, and stepped out the door.

Maria was sitting in the hallway, her back against the wall, holding a steaming cup of coffee between her hands.

Waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> o worm?


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick thing, i mentioned it in the tags but idk if anyone read (or understood ) that aahgh
> 
> so (i've got it all planned out dw) the book sort of goes backwards? in time chronologically, i'm confused too ahha 
> 
> there's a date and location at the beginning of the chapter where it changes (i.e. here and on the first chapter, and it'll come up in a few chapters again so look out for that) and the chapters after that, up until the next date pops up, are just following that in a normal chronological time line sense
> 
> i hope that's sort of clear? sorry aahgh enjoy, this chapter's longer than usual

**END OF APRIL, 2017**   
**LONDON**

Seven weeks earlier, at the end of April, Eliza work up in a youth hostel on the outskirts of London. There were eight bunks to a room: thin mattresses, topped with regulation white sheets. Sleeping bags lay on top of those. Backpacks leaned against the walls. There was a faint reek of body odour and patchouli.

She’d slept in her workout clothes. She eased out of bed, laced her shoes, and ran eight miles through the suburb, past pubs and butcher shops that were still shuttered in the early light. On return, she did planks, lunges, push-ups, and squats in the hostel common room.

Eliza was in the shower before her roommates woke up and started using the hot water. Then she climbed back into her top bunk and unwrapped a chocolate protein bar.

The bunk room was still dark. She opened Our Mutual Friend and read by the light on her phone. It was a thick Victorian novel about an orphan. Charles Dickens wrote it. Her friend Theodosia had given it to her.

Theodosia Bartow was the best friend Eliza had ever had. Her favourite books were always about orphans. Theo was an orphan herself, born in Minnesota to a teenage mother who had died when Theo was two. Then she’d been adopted by a couple who lived in a penthouse on New York’s Upper East Side.

Anne and Theodore Bartow were in their late thirties at the time. They couldn’t have children, and Theodore’s legal work had long included volunteer advocacy for kids in the foster care system. He believed in adoption. So, after several years on wait lists for a newborn baby, the Bartows declared themselves open to taking an older child.

They fell in love with this particular two-year-old’s fat arms and freckled nose. They took her in, renamed her Theodosia, and left her old name in a file cabinet. She was phorographed and tickled. Anne cooked her hot macaroni with butter and cheese. When little Theodosia was five, the Bartows sent her to the Greenbriar School, a private establishment in Manhattan. There, she wore a uniform of green and white and learned to speak French. On weekends, little Theo played Lego, baked cookies, and went to the American Museum of Natural History, where she loved the reptile skeletons best. She celebrated all the Jewish holidays and, when she grew up, had an unorthodox bat mitzvah ceremony in the woods upstate.

The bat mitzvah became complicated. Anne’s mother and Theodore’s parents did not consider Theodosia Jewish, because her biological mother had not been. They all pushed for a formal conversion process that would put off the ceremony for a year, but instead Anne left the family synagogue and joined a secular Jewish community that did ceremonies at a mountain retreat.

Thus it was that at age thirteen, Theodosia Bartow became more conscious of her orphan status than she ever had been before, and began reading the stories that would become a touchstone of her interior life. At first she went back to the orphan books she’d been pushed to read in school. There were a lot of those. “I liked the clothes and puddings and the horse-drawn carriages,” Theo told Eliza.

Back in June, the two of them had been living together in a house Theo rented on the island of Martha’s Vineyard. That day, they drove to a farm stand where you could pick your own flowers. “I liked Heidi and God knows what other dreck,” Theo told Eliza. She was bent over a dahlia bush with a pair of scissors. “But later, all those books made me puke. The heroines were so fucking cheerful all the time. They were paragons of self-sacrificing womanhood. Like, ‘I’m starving to death! Here, eat my only bakery bun!’ ‘I can’t walk, I’m paralysed, but still I see the bright side of life, happy happy!’ A Little Princess and Pollyanna, let me tell you, they are selling you a pack of ugly lies. Once I realised that, I was pretty much over them.”

Finished with her bouquet, Theo climbed up to sit on the wooden fence. Eliza was still picking flowers.

“In high school I read Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair, Great Expectations, et cetera,” Theo went on. “They’re like, the edgy orphans.”

“The books you gave me,” Eliza said, realising.

“Yeah. Like, in Vanity Fair, Becky Sharp is one big ambition machine. She’ll stop at zero. Jane Eyre has temper tantrums, throws herself on the floor. Pip in Great Expectations is deluded and money hungry. All of them want a better life and go after it, and all of them are morally compromised. That makes them interesting.”  
“I like them already,” said Eliza.

• • •

Theo had gotten into Vassar College on the strength of her essay about those characters. She wasn’t much for school besides that, she admitted. She didn’t like it when people told her what to do. When professors assigned her to read the ancient Greeks, she had not done it. When her friend Debbie told her to read Suzanne Collins, she had not done that, either. And when her mother told her to work harder on her studies, Theo had dropped out of school.

Of course, the pressure hadn’t been the only reason Theo left Vassar. The situation was desperately complicated. But Anne Bartow’s controlling nature was definitely a factor.

“My mother believes in the American dream,” said Theodosia. “And she wants me to believe in it, too. Her parents were born in Belarus. They full-on bought the package. You know, the idea that here in the US of A, anyone can reach the top. Doesn’t matter where you start out, one day, you can run the country, get rich, own a mansion. Right?”

This conversation happened a little later in the Martha’s Vineyard summer. Eliza and Theo were at Moshup Beach. They had a large cotton blanket spread underneath them.

“It’s a pretty dream,” said Eliza, popping a potato chip into her mouth.

“My dad’s family bought it, too,” Theo continued. “His grandparents came from Poland and they lived in these tenements. Then his father did well and owned a delicatessen. My dad was supposed to move even further up, be the first in his family to go to college, so he did exactly that. He became, like, this big lawyer. His parents were so proud. It seemed simple to them: Leave the old country behind and reinvent your life. And if you couldn’t quite live the American dream, then your children would do it for you.”

Eliza loved hearing Theo talk. She hadn’t ever met anyone who spoke so freely, Theo’s dialogue was rambling, but it was also relentlessly curious and thoughtful. She just talked, in a flow that made her seem alternately questioning and desperate to be heard.

“Land of opportunity,” Eliza said now, just to see what direction Theo would go.

“That’s what they believe, but I don’t think it’s really true,” Theo responded. “Like, you can figure out from half an hour of watching the news that there’s more opportunity for white people. And for people who speak English.”

“And for people with your kind of accent.”

“East Coast?” said Theo. “Yeah, I guess. And for non-disabled people. Oh, and men! Men, men, men! Men still walk around like the US of A is a big cake store and all the cake is for them. Don’t you think?”

“I’m not letting them have my cake,” said Eliza. “That’s my bloody cake and I’m eating it.”

“Yes. You defend your cake,” said Theo. “And you get chocolate cake with chocolate icing and, like, five layers. But for me, the point is—go ahead and called me stupid, but I don’t want cake. Maybe I’m not even hungry. I’m trying to just be. To exist and enjoy what’s right in front of me. I know that’s a luxury and I’m probably for even having that luxury, but I also think, I’m trying to appreciate it, people! Let me just be grateful I’m here on this beach, and not feel like I’m supposed to be striving all the time.”

“I think you’re wrong about the American dream,” said Eliza.

“No, I’m not. Why?”

“The American dream is to be an action hero.”

“Seriously?”

“Americans like to fight wars,” said Eliza. “We want to change laws or break them. We like vigilantes. We’re crazy about them, right? Superheroes sand the Taken movies and whatever. We’re all about heading out west and grabbing land from people who had it before. Slaughtering the so-called bag guys and fighting the system. That’s the American dream.”

“Tell that to my mom,” said Theo. “Say, Hello! Theo wants to grow up to be a vigilante, rather than a captain of industry. See how it goes.”

“I’ll have a talk with her.”

“Good. That’ll fix everything.” Theo chuckled and rolled over on the beach blanket. She took off her sunglasses. “She has ideas about me that don’t fit, Like, when I was a kid, it would have been a huge deal to me to have a couple friends who were also adopted, so I didn’t feel alone or different or whatever, but back then she was all, Theo’s fine, she doesn’t need that, we’re just like other families! Then five hundred years later, I’m in ninth grade, she read a magazine article about adopted kids and decided I had to be friends with this girl Jolie, this girl who’s just started at Greenbriar.”

Eliza remembered. The girl from the birthday party and American Ballet Theatre.

“My mom had fantasies about the two of us bonding, and I tried, but that girl seriously did not like me,” Theo continued. “She had blue hair. Very cooler-than-thou. She teased me for my whole thing about stray cats, and for reading Heidi, and she made fun of the music I liked. But my mom kept calling her mom, and her mom kept calling my mom, making plans for the two of us. They imagined this whole adopted-kid connection between us that never existed.” Theodosia sighed. “It was just sad.” But then she moved to Chicago and my mom let it go.

“Now you have me,” said Eliza.

Theo reached up to touch the back of Eliza’s neck. “Now I have you, which makes me significantly less mental.”

“Less mental is good.”

Theo opened the cooler and found two bottles of homemade iced tea. She always packed drinks for the beach. Eliza didn’t like the lemon slices floating in it, but she drank some anyway.

“You look pretty with your hair cut short,” Theo said, touching Eliza’s neck again.

• • •

On her winter break from her first year at Vassar, Theodosia had rummaged in Theodore Bartow’s file cabinet, looking for her adoption records. They weren’t hard to find. “I guess I thought reading the file would give me some insight into my identity,” she said. “Like learning names would explain why I was so miserable in college, or make me feel grounded in some way I never had. But no.”

That day, Theo and Eliza had driven to Menemsha, a fishing village not far from Theo’s vineyard house. They had walked out onto a stone pier that stretched into the sea. Gulls wheeled overhead. Water lapped at their feet. They were the same height, and as they sat on the rock, their legs were tan in front of them, shiny with sunblock.

“Yeah, it was total shit,” said Theodosia. “There was no dad listed at all.”

“What was your birth name?”

Theo blushed and pulled her hoodie up over her face for a moment. She had deep dimples and even teeth. Her pixie-cut bleached hair showed her tiny ears, one of which was triple pierced. Her eyebrows were plucked into thin lines.

“I don’t want to say,” she told Eliza from inside the fabric. “I’m hiding in my hoodie now.”

“Come on. You stated the story.”

“You can’t laugh if I tell you.” Theo lifted the hoodie and looked at Eliza. “Jacques laughed and then I got mad. I didn’t forgive him for two days until he brought be lemon cream chocolates.” Jacques was Theo’s boyfriend. He lived with them in the Martha’s Vineyard house.

“Jacques could learn manners,” said Eliza.

“He didn’t think. He just blurted out the laugh. Then he was super sorry afterward.” Theo always defended Jacques after criticising him.

“Please tell me your birth name,” said Eliza. “I will not laugh.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

Theo whispered in Eliza’s ear, “Melody, and then Bacon. Melody Bacon.”

“Was there a middle name?” Eliza asked.

“Nope.”

Eliza did not laugh, or even smile. She put both her arms around Theo’s body. They looked out at the sea. “Do you feel like a Melody?”

“No.” Theo was thoughtful. “But I don’t feel like a Theodosia, either.”

They watched a pair of seagulls that had just landed on a rock near them.

“Why did your mother die?” Eliza asked eventually. “Was that in the file?”

“I guessed the basic picture before I read it, but yeah. She overdosed on meth.”

Eliza took that in. She pictured her friend as a toddler in a wet diaper, crawling across dirty bedclothes while her mother lay beneath them, high and neglectful. Or dead.

“I have two marks on my upper right arm,” said Theo. “I had them when I came to live in New York. As far as I knew, I’d always had them. I never thought to ask, but the nurse at Vassar told me they were burns. Like from a cigarette.”

Eliza didn’t know what to say. She wanted to fix things for baby Theo, but Anne and Theodore Bartow had already done that, long ago.

“My parents are dead, too,” she said, finally. It was the first time she’d spoken it aloud, though Theo already knew she’d been raised by her aunt.

“I figured,” said Theo. “But I also figured you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“I don’t,” said Eliza. “Not yet, anyway.” She leaned forward, separating herself from Theodosia. “I don’t know what story to tell about it yet. It doesn’t…” Words failed her. She couldn’t ramble like Theo did, to figure herself out. “The story won’t take shape.”

“It was true. At that time, Eliza had only begun to construct the origin tale she would later rely upon, and she could not, could not tell anything else.

“All good,” said Theodosia.

She reached into her backpack and pulled out a thick bar of milk chocolate. She unwrapped it halfway and broke off a piece of Eliza and a piece for herself. Eliza leaned back against the rock and let the chocolate melt in her mouth and the sun warm her face. Theo shooed the begging seagulls away, scolding them.

Eliza felt then that she knew Theodosia completely. Everything she was understood between them, and it always would be.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rip super short chapter i'm in some stuff rn but will be back on track asap fhh

Now, in the youth hostel, Eliza put down Our Mutual Friend. There was a body in the Thames, early in the story. She didn’t like reading that—the description of a waterlogged dead body. Eliza’s days were long now, since news had gotten around that Theodosia Bartow had killed herself in that selfsame river, weighting her pockets with stones and jumping off the Westminster Bridge, leaving a suicide note in her brad box.

Eliza thought about Theo every day. Every hour. She remembered the way Theo covered her face with her hands or her hoodie when she felt vulnerable. The high, bubblegum sound of her voice. Theodosia rolled her rings around her fingers. She had those two cigarette burns on her upper arm and a scar on one hand from a hot pan of cream-cheese brownies. She chopped onions fast and hard with an outsize heavy knife, something she had learned to do from a cooking video. She smelled like jasmine and sometimes like coffee with cream and sugar. There was a lemony spray she put on her hair.

Theodosia Bartow was the type of girl teachers never thought worked to her full potential. The type of girl who blew off studying and yet filled her favourite books with sticky notes. Theo refuse to strive for greatness or to work toward other people’s definitions of success. She struggled to wrest herself from men who wanted to dominate her and women who wanted her exclusive attention. She refused, over and over, to give any single person her devotion, preferring instead to make a home for herself that she defined on her own terms, and of which she was master. She had accepted her parents’ money but not their control of her identity, and had taken advantage of her good fortune to reinvent herself, to find a different way of living. It was a particular kind of bravery, one that often got mistaken for selfishness or laziness. She was the type of girl you might think was nothing more than a rich private-school blonde, but you’d be very wrong if you went no deeper than that.

Today, when the hostel woke up and the backpackers began staggering to the bathroom, Eliza went out. She spent the day as she often did, on self-improvement. She walked through the halls of the British Museum for a couple of hours, learning the names of paintings and drinking a series of Diet Cokes from small bottles. She stood in a bookshop for an hour and committed a map of Mexico to memory, then learned by heart a chapter of a book called Wealth Management: Eight Core Principles.

She wanted to call Alexander, but she could not.

She wouldn’t answer any calls except the one she was waiting for.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chapter again, sorry :'')

The phone rang as Eliza came out of the tube near the hostel. It was Anne Bartow. Eliza saw the cell number and used her general American accent.

Anne was in London, it turned out.

Eliza was not expecting that.

Could Eliza meet for lunch at the Ivy tomorrow?

Of course. Eliza said how surprised she was to hear from Anne. They had spoken a number of times directly after Theo’s death, when Eliza had talked to police officers and shipped back items from Theo’s London flat while Anne nursed Theodore in New York City, but all those difficult conversation had finished some weeks ago.

Anne normally had a busy, chatty way about her, but today she sounded low and her voice didn’t have its usual animation. “I should tell you,” she said, “that I lost Theodore.”

That was a shock. Eliza thought of Theodore Bartow’s swollen grey face and the funny little dogs he doted on. She had liked him very much. She hadn’t known he was dead.

Anne explained that Theodore had died two weeks ago of heart failure. All those years of kidney dialysis, and his heart had killed him. Or maybe, Anne said, because of Theodosia’s suicide, he had not wanted to continue living any longer.

They talked about Theodore’s illness for a while, and about how wonderful he was, and about Theo. Anne said what a help Eliza had been, handling things in London when the Bartows couldn’t leave New York. “I know it seems strange for me to be travelling,” Anne said, “but after all those years of looking after Theodore, I can’t bear to be in the apartment alone. It’s filled with his things, Theo’s things. I was going to…” Her voice trailed off, and when she started talking again it was forced and bright. “Anyway, my friend Rachel lives in Hampshire and she offered me use of her guest cottage to rest up and heal. She told me I had to come. Some friends are just like that. I hadn’t talked to Rachel in ages, but the moment she called—after hearing about Theo and Theodore—we started up again right away. No small talk. It was all honesty. We went to Greenbriar together. School friends have these memories, these shared histories that bind them together, I think. Look at you and Theo. You picked up again so brilliantly after being apart.”

“I’m very, very sorry about Gil,” Eliza said. She meant it completely.

“He was sick forever. So many pills.” Anne paused, and when she went on she sounded choked. “I think after what happened to Theo, he just had no fight left in his body. He and Theo, they were my sweetie potatoes.” Then she pushed her voice again into busy brightness: “Now, back to the reason I called. You’ll come to lunch, right?”

“I said I’d come. Of course.”

“The Ivy, tomorrow at one. I want to thank you for all you did for me, and for Theodore, after Theo died. And I even have a surprise for you,” said Anne. “Something that might actually cheer us both up. So don’t be late.”

When the conversation was over, Eliza held the phone to her chest for a while.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we go i'm back aaha all's well
> 
> hope you like rip

The Ivy inhabited its narrow corner of London perfectly. It seemed custom-fit to its plot of land. Inside, the walls were lined with portraits and stained glass. It smelled like money: roasted lamb and hothouse flowers. Eliza wore a fitted dress and ballet flats. She had added red lipstick to her college-girl makeup.

She found Anne waiting for her at a table, drinking water from a wineglass. When Eliza had last seen her eleven months ago, Theo’s mother had been a glossy woman. She was a dermatologist, midfifties, trim except for a potbelly. Her skin had had a moist pinkish sheen, and her hair had been long, dyed deep brown and ironed into loose curls. Now the hair was gray at the roots and chopped into a bob. Her mouth looked swollen and manly without lipstick. She wore, as women of the Upper East Side do, narrow black pants and a long cashmere cardigan—but instead of heels, she had on a pair of bright blue running shoes. Eliza almost didn’t recognise her. Anne stood and smiled as Eliza came across the room. “I look different, I know.”

“No, you don’t,” Eliza lied. She kissed Anne’s cheek.

“I can’t do it any longer,” said Anne. “All that time in front of the mirror in the morning, the uncomfortable shoes. Putting on the face.”

Eliza sat down.

“I used to put on my face for Theodore,” Anne went on. “And for Theo, when she was little. She used to say, ‘Mommy, curl your hair! Go put on sparkles!’ Now there’s no reason. I’m taking time off work. One day I thought, I don’t have to bother. I walked out the door without doing anything and it was such a relief, I can’t say. But I do know it disturbs people. My friends worry. But I think, meh. I lost Theodosia. I lost Theodore. This is me now.”

Eliza was anxious to say the right thing, but she didn’t know if sympathy or distraction was required. “I read a book about that in college,” she said.

“About what?”

“The presentation of self in everyday life. This guy Goffman had the idea that in different situations, you perform yourself differently. Your character isn’t static. It’s an adaptation.”

“I have stopped performing myself, you mean?”

“Or you’re doing it another way now. There are different versions of the self.”

Anne picked up the menu, then reached over and touched Eliza hand “You need to go back to college, sweetie potato. You’re so smart.”

“Thank you.”

Anne looked Eliza in the eye. “I’m very intuitive about people, you know,” she said, “and you have so much potential. You’re hungry and adventurous. I hope you know you could be anything in the world you want.”

The waiter arrived and took a drink order. Someone else set down a bread basket.

“I brought you Theodosia’s rings,” said Eliza, when the bustle was over. “I should have mailed them back before, but I— “

“I get it,” said Anne. “It was hard to let them go.”

Eliza nodded. She handed over a package of tissue paper. Anne pulled the sticky tape off. Inside lay eight antique rings, all carved or shaped like animals. Theo had collected them. They were funny and unusual, carefully crafted, all different styles. The ninth one, Eliza still wore. Theo had given it to her. It was a jade snake on her right ring finger.

Anne began to weep quietly into her napkin.

Eliza looked down at the collection. Each of those circles had been on Theo’s fragile fingers at one point of another. Theo had stood, sun-kissed, in that jewellery store on the Vineyard. “I want to see the most unusual ring you have for sale,” she’d said to the shopkeeper. And later, “This one is for you.” She’d given Eliza the snake ring, and Eliza would not stop wearing it, now, even though she didn’t deserve it any longer, and maybe had never deserved it at all.

Eliza gagged, a feeling that came from deep in her stomach and rippled through her throat. “Excuse me.” She got up and stumbled toward the ladies’ toilet. The restaurant spun around her. Black closed in from the sides of her eyes. She clutched the back of an empty chair to steady herself.

She was going to be sick. Or faint. Or both. Here in the Ivy, surrounded by these pristine people, where she didn’t deserve to be, embarrassing the poor, poor mother of a friend she hadn’t loved well enough, or had loved too much.

Eliza reached the restroom and stood bent over the sink.

The gagging would not stop. Her throat contracted over and over.

She closed herself in a stall, steadying herself against the wall. Her shoulders shook. She heaved, but nothing came up.

She stayed in there until the gagging subsided, shaking and trying to catch her breath.

Back at the sink, she wiped her wet face with a paper towel. She pressed her swollen eyes with fingers dipped in cold water.

The red lipstick was in the pocket of her dress. Eliza put it on like armour and went back to see Anne.

• • •

When Eliza returned to the table, Anne had composed herself and was talking to the waiter. “I’ll have the beetroot to start,” she told him as Eliza sat down. “And then the swordfish, I think. The swordfish is good? Yes, okay.”

Eliza ordered a hamburger and a green salad.

When the waiter eft, Anne apologised. “Sorry. I’m very sorry. Are you alright?”

“Sure.”

“I warn you, I may cry again later. Possibly on the street! You never know these days. I’m liable to begin sobbing at any given moment.” The rings and their tissue paper were no longer on the table. “Listen, Elizabeth,” said Anne. “You once told me that your parents failed you. Do you remember?”

Eliza did not remember. She never thought of her parents anymore, at all, unless it was through the lens of the hero’s origin she had created for herself. She never, ever thought of her aunt.

Now the origin story flashed into her mind: Her parents in the front yard of a pretty little house at the end of a cul-de-sac, in that tiny Alabama town. They lay facedown in pools of black blood that seeped into the grass, lit by a single streetlight. Her mother shot through the brain. Her father bleeding out through bullet holes in his arms.

She found the story comforting. It was beautiful. The parents had been brave. The girl would grow up highly educated and extremely powerful.

But she knew it was not a story to share with Anne. Instead, she said mildly, “Did I say that?”

“Yes, and when you did, I thought maybe I had failed Theodosia, too. Theodore and I hardly ever talked about her being adopted when she was little. Not in front of her, or in private. I wanted to think of Theo as my baby, you know? Not anyone’s but mine and Theodore’s. And it was hard to speak about, because her birth mother became an addict, and there were no family members who would take the baby. I told myself I was protecting her from pain. I had no idea how badly I was failing her until she—” Anne’s voice trailed off.

“Theodosia loved you,” said Eliza.

“She was desperate about something. And she didn’t come to me.”

“She didn’t come to me, either.”

“I should have raised her so that she could open up to people, get help if she was in trouble.”

“Theo told me everything,” said Eliza. “Her secrets, her insecurities, how she wanted to live her life. She told me her birth name. We wore each other’s clothes and read each other’s books. Honestly, I was very close to Theo when she died, and I think she was mad lucky to have you.”

Anne’s eyes welled and she touched Eliza’s hand. “She was lucky to have you, too. I thought so when she first took up with you at Greenbriar freshman year. I know she adored you more than anyone in her life, Eliza, because—Well. This is what I wanted to meet with you about. Our family lawyer tells me Theo left you her money.”

Eliza felt dizzy. She put down her fork.

Theo’s money. Millions.

It was safety and power. It was plane tickets and keys to cars, but more importantly, it was tuition payments, food in the larder, medical care. It meant that no one could say no. No one could stop her anymore, and no one could hurt her. Eliza wouldn’t need help from anyone, ever again.

“I don’t understand finance,” Anne went on. “I should, I know. But I trusted Theodore and I was glad he took care of all that. It bores me out of my skin. But Theo understood it, and she left a will. She sent it to the lawyer before she died. She had a lot of money from her father and me, once she turned eighteen. It was in trust till then, and after her birthday, Theodore did the paperwork to shift it over to her.”

“She got the money when she was still in high school?”

“The May before college started. Maybe that was a mistake. Anyway, it’s done.” Anne went on, “She was good with finances. She lived off the interest and never touched the capital except to buy the London flat. That’s why she didn’t have to work. And in her will, she left it all to you. She made small bequests to the National Kidney Foundation—because of Theodore’s illness—and to the North Shore Animal League, but she made a will and left you the bulk of the money. She sent the lawyer an email that specifically says she wanted to help you go back to college.”

Eliza was touched. It didn’t make sense, but she was.

Anne smiled. “She left this world sending you back to school. That’s the bright side I’m trying to see.”

“When did she write the will?”

“A few months before she died. She had it notarised in San Francisco. There are just a few things to sign.” Anne shoved an envelope across the table. “They’ll transfer the money directly into your account, and in September you’ll be a sophomore at Stanford.”

• • •

When the money arrived in her bank, Eliza withdrew it all and opened a new checking account somewhere else. She started several new credit card accounts and arranged for the bills to be paid automatically every month.

Then she went shopping. She bought false eyelashes, foundation, liner, blush, powder, brushes, three different lipsticks, two shadows, and a small but expensive makeup box. A red wig, a black dress, and a pair of high heels. More would have been nice, but she needed to travel light.

She used her computer to purchase a place ticket to Los Angeles, booked an LA hotel, and researched used car dealers in the Las Vegas area. London to LA, then LA by bus to Vegas. From Vegas by car to Mexico. That was the plan.

Eliza paged through documents on her laptop. She made sure she knew all the bank numbers, customer service numbers, passwords, credit card numbers, and codes. She memorized passport and driver’s license numbers. Then one night, long after dark, she tossed the laptop and her phone into the Thames.

Back at the youth hostel, she wrote a sincere letter of thanks to Anne Bartow on an old-fashioned piece of airmail paper and posted it. She cleaned out her storage locker and packed her suitcase. Her identification and papers were neatly organized. She made sure to place all her lotions and hair products in travel-size bottles in sealable plastic bags.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave me comments to motivate? dnak


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rip sorry it's been a while u hm --- longish i guess? please like me :'')

Eliza had never been to Vegas. She changed her clothes in the bathroom at the bus station. The sink area was inhabited by a white woman in her fifties with a granny cart. She was sitting on the counter, eating a sandwich wrapped in greasy white paper. She wore dirty black leggings on narrow thighs. Her hair was teased up high, grey and blonde. It was matted. Her shoes were on the floor—pale pink vinyl stilettos. Her bare feet, with Band-Aids on the heels, swung in the air.

Eliza went into the biggest stall and dug through her case. She put on her hoop earrings for the first time in nearly a year. She wiggled into the dress she’d bought—short and black, paired with leather platform heels. She got out the red wig. It was unnaturally sleek, but the colour looked good with her freckles. Eliza took out the makeup box, closed her bag, and went to the sink.

The woman sitting on the counter didn’t remark on the change of hair colour. She crumpled her sandwich wrapper and lit a cigarette.

Eliza’s makeup skills came from watching online tutorials. For most of the last year she’d been wearing what she thought of as college-girl makeup: natural skin, blush, sheer lips, mascara. Now she brought out fake eyelashes, green shadow, black liner, base, contouring brushes, eyebrow pencil, coral gloss.

It wasn’t really necessary. She didn’t need the cosmetics, the dress, or the shoes. The wig was probably enough. Still, the transformation was good practice—that was how she thought of it. And she liked becoming someone else.

The other woman spoke as Eliza finished her eyes. “You a working girl?”

Eliza answered, just for fun, in her Scottish accent. “No.”

“I mean, you selling yourself?”

“No.”

“Don’t sell yourself. So sad, you girls.”

“I’m not.”

“It’s a shame, that’s all I’m saying.”

Eliza was silent. She applied highlighter to her cheekbones.

“I did that job,” the woman went on. She lowered herself off the counter and stuffed her messed-up feet into the shoes. “No family anymore and no money: that was how I started, and it’s no different now. But it’s not a way up, even with high-rolling guys. You should know that.”

Eliza shrugged into a green cardigan and picked up her case. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine, honestly.” Dragging the bag behind her, she headed for the door—but she stumbled slightly in the unfamiliar shoes.

“You alright?” the woman asked.

“Oh, yeah.”

“It’s hard to be a woman sometimes.”

“Yeah, it pretty much sucks, except for the makeup,” Eliza said. She pushed through the door without looking back.

• • •

With her suitcase stashed in a bus-station locker, Eliza shouldered a tote bag and took a taxi to the Las Vegas strip. She was tried—she hadn’t been able to sleep on the bus ride, and she was on London time.

The casino was lit up with neon, chandeliers, and the sparkle of the slot machines. Eliza walked past men in sports jerseys, pensioners, party girls, and a large group of librarians wearing conference badges. It took two hours, walking from place to place, but eventually she found what she was looking for.

There was a cluster of women around a bank of Batman slots having what seemed to be a ridiculously good time. They had frozen drinks, purple and slushy. A couple looked Asian American, a couple white. It was a bachelorette party, and the bride was perfect, just what Eliza needed. She was pale and petite, with strong-looking shoulders and gentle freckles—couldn’t have been more than twenty-three. Her light brown hair was up in a ponytail, and she wore a hot-pink minidress and a white sash with rhinstones on it: BRIDE TO BE. Dangling from her left shoulder was a small turquoise bag with multiple zippers. She leaned over as her friends played the machines, cheering, comfortable being adored by everyone around her.

Eliza walked over to the group and used a lowland Southern accent, like in Alabama. “’Scuse me, do any of y’all—well my phone’s out of charge and I gotta text my friend. I last saw her over by the sushi bar, but then I started playing, and now, whoop! It’s three hours later and she’s MIA.”

The bachelorettes turned around.

Eliza smiled. “Oh, are y’all a bridal party?”

“She’s getting married on Saturday!” cried one of the women, clutching the bride.

“Hooray!” said Eliza. “What’s your name?”

“Margot,” said the bride. They were the same height, but Margot wore flats, so Eliza stood over her a little.

“Margot Woods, soon to be Margot Forrest!” cried a bachelorette.

“Dang,” said Eliza. “Do you have a dress?”

“Of course I do,” said Margot.

“It’s not a Vegas wedding,” said a bachelorette. “It’s a church wedding.”

“Where are y’all from?” asked Eliza.

“Tacoma. It’s in Washington. You know it? We’re just in Vegas for—“

“They planned the whole weekend for me,” said Margot. “We flew in this morning and went to the spa and the nail salon. See? I got the gel. Then we hit the casino, and tomorrow we’re gonna see the white tigers.”

“And what’s your dress? For the wedding, I mean.”

Margot clutched Eliza’s arm. “It’s to die for. I feel like a princess, it’s so good.”

“Can I see it? On your phone? You must have a picture.”

Eliza put her hand over her mouth and ducked her head a little. “I have a thing about wedding dresses, you know? Ever since I was a bitty girl.”

“Hell yes, I have a picture,” said Margot. She unzipped her bag and pulled out a phone in a gold case. The lining of the bag was pink. Inside were a wallet of dark brown leathers, two tampons wrapped in plastic, a pack of gum, and a lipstick.

“Lemme see,” said Eliza. She stepped around to look at Margot’s phone.

Harry swiped through the pictures. A dog. The rusty underside of a sink. A baby. The same baby again. “That’s my boy, Eddie. He’s eighteen months.” Some trees by a lake. “There it is.”

The dress was strapless and long, with folds of fabric around the hips. In the picture, Margot modelled it in a bridal store filled with other white gowns.

Eliza oohed and aahed. “Can I see your fiancé?”

“Hell yes. He, like, killed the proposal,” said Margot. “He put the ring in a doughnut. He’s in law school. I won’t have to work unless I want to.” She went on. Talking, talking. She held up the phone to show the lucky guy grinning on the slopes.

“Crazy cute,” said Eliza. Her hand went into Margot’s bag. She lifted the wallet and slid it into her tote. “My boyfriend, Alex, is backpacking around the world,” she continued. “He’s in the Philippines right now. Can you believe it? So I’m in Vegas with my girlfriend. I should get a guy who wants to settle down, not backpack the world, right? If I want a wedding.”

“If that’s what you want,” said Margot, “you can definitely have it. You can have anything if you set your mind to it. You pray and you, like, visualise.”

“Visualisation,” said one of the bridesmaids. “We went to this workshop. It really works.”

“Listen,” Eliza said. “The reason I came up to talk to y’all was, could I use your phone? Mine’s dead. Would that be okay?”

Margot handed over her phone and Eliza texted a random number. “Meet me at 10:15 at the Cheesecake Factory.” She handed the phone back to Margot. “Thanks. You’re gonna be the most beautiful bride.”

“Same to you, sweetie,” said Margot. “Someday soon.”

The bachelorettes waved. Eliza waved back and booked it through the lines of slot machines to a bank of elevators.

As soon as the elevator door closed and she was alone, Eliza pulled off the wig. She kicked off the heels and pulled joggers and Vans from the tote, yanked the pants on over the short black dress, and slipped the Vans on her feet. The wig and the heels went into the bag. She put on a zip-up hoodie and the doors opened on the tenth floor of the hotel.

Eliza didn’t get off. As the elevator went back down, she pulled out a makeup wipe and peeled off her false eyelashes. She wiped off her lip gloss. Then she opened Margot’s wallet, snagged the driver’s license, and dropped the wallet itself on the floor.  
She was another person by the time the door opened.

• • •

Four casinos down on the strip, Eliza surveyed six restaurants until she found a place to order a coffee and chat up a lonely college student who was just starting work on the night shift. The place was a 1950s diner replica. The waitress was a tiny woman with freckles and soft brown curls. She wore a polka-dot dress and a frilly housewife’s apron. When a crowd of drunk guys barged in talking about beer and burgers, Eliza put some cash on the counter to pay for her food and then slid into the kitchen. She snagged the most feminine backpack off a line of hooks and left through a back exit into the casino’s service hallway. Running down a flight of stairs and then out into the alley, she shouldered the pack and pushed her way through a group of people lined up for a magic show.

A ways down she rummaged through the bag. In the zipper pocket was a passport. The name on it was Adelaide Belle Berry, age twenty-one.

It as a lucky take. Eliza had figured she might have to work a long time before she got a passport. She felt sorry for Adelaide, though, and after taking the passport, she turned the backpack in to a lost properties office.

Back on the strip, she found a wig store and two clothing shops. She stocked up, and by morning, she had moved casinos twice more. Wearing a wavy blonde wig and orange lipstick, she lifted the license of one Dakota Pleasance, five foot two. In a black wig and silver jacket she snagged the passport of Dorothea von Schnell of Germany, five foot three.

By eight a.m., Eliza was back in the joggers and Vans, her face wiped clean. She got a cab to the Rio hotel and took the elevator to the roof. She had read about the VooDoo Lounge, fifty-one stories up.

• • •

When a battle is over, when he has lived to fight again another day, the great white hetero action hero goes somewhere high above the city, somewhere with a view. Iron Man, Spiderman, Batman, Wolverine, Jason Bourne, James Bond—they all do it. The hero gazes out at the pain and beauty contained in the twinkling lights of the metropolis. He thinks about his special mission, his unique talents, his strength, his strange, violent life and all the sacrifices he makes to live it.

The VooDoo Lounge early in the morning was little more than a concrete expanse of roof dotted with red and black couches. The chairs were shaped like enormous hands. A staircase curved around the roof. Patrons could climb it for a better view of the Vegas strip below. There were a couple of cages for showgirls to dance in, but no one was in the lounge now except a janitor. He raised his eyebrows as Eliza came in. “I just want to have a look,” Eliza told him. “I’m harmless, I swear.”

“Of course you are,” he said. “Go ahead. I’m mopping up.”

Eliza went to the top of the staircase and gazed at the city. She thought of all the lives being led down there. People were buying toothpaste, having arguments, picking up eggs on the way home from work. They lived their lives surrounded by all that glitter and neon, happily assuming that small, cute women were harmless.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick short chapter just to finish up this time period aahdh the next chapter will start a new time so you might wanna check i'm pretty sure it's Chapter 8 with the last date change ahah

Three years ago, Elizabeth Schuyler was fifteen. She’d been in an arcade—a big one, air-condtioned and shiny-new. She was racking up points on a war simulation. She was lost in it, shooting, when two boys she knew from school came up behind her and squeezed her boobs. One on each side.

Eliza elbowed one sharply in his soft stomach, then swung around and stomped hard on the other one’s foot. Then she kneed him in the groin.

It was the first time she’d ever hit anyone outside of her martial arts classes. The first time she’d needed to.

Alright, she hadn’t needed to. She’d wanted to. She enjoyed it.

When that boy bent over, coughing, Eliza turned and hit the first one in the face with the heel of her hand. His head flew back and she yanked the front of his T-shirt and yelled into his greasy ear, “I’m not yours to touch!”

She wanted to see fear on that boy’s face, and to see his friend crumpled over on a nearby bench. Those two boys had always been so cocky at school, afraid of nothing.

A pimple-faced man who worked at the arcade came over and grabbed Elizabeth’s arm. “We can’t have fighting in here, miss. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”

“Are you grabbing my arm?” she asked him. “’Cause I don’t want you grabbing my arm.”

He dropped it fast.

He was afraid of her.

He was six inches taller than her and at least three years older. He was a grown man, and he was afraid of her.

It felt good.

Elisabeth left the arcade. She didn’t worry that the boys would follow her. She felt like she was in a movie. She hadn’t known she could take care of herself that way, hadn’t known that the strength she’d been building in the classes and in the weight room at the high school would pay off. She realised she had built armour for herself. Perhaps that was what she’d been intending to do.

She looked the same, looked just like anyone, but she saw the world differently after that. To be a physically powerful woman—it was something. You could go anywhere, do anything, if you were difficult to hurt.

• • •

A few floors down in the Rio hotel hallway, Eliza found a maid who was pushing a cart. A forty-dollar tip and she had a room to sleep in until three-thirty. The check-in time was four p.m.

Another night of lifting wallets and another day of sleep and Eliza was ready to buy an inconspicuous used car off a sleazy guy in a parking lot. She paid cash. She collected her luggage from the bus station and stashed her extra IDs deep under the felt that lined the hatchback.

She drove herself across the border to Mexico with Adelaide Belle Perry’s passport.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh she's so cool
> 
> comments and kudos always appreciated :")


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for the comments aah i only just saw them because i'm still kind of getting the hang of a03 but yes! thank you i really appreciate it aa
> 
> okay so uh! as i said before, might wanna check chapter 8 for the last time ( i think it was april? maybe i don't remember ha)
> 
> ALSO ! i changed a couple things - previously (i think in chapter 8 again) they mentioned burr (as aaron) and i went back and changed that to jacques, who becomes a character in this chapter. i just thought it fit better and didn't want to make burr an ass because i love him (also where are all my jacques/theodosia fanfics? bro)
> 
> jacques marcus prevost was theodosia's first husband (the british officer - though he was actually swiss? h)
> 
> i changed some of the tags to work with that change too
> 
> i think that's it? hhhh
> 
> TW: suicide mentions

**LAST WEEK OF FEBRUARY, 2017**   
**LONDON**

Three months before Eliza arrived in Mexico, Jacques Prevost was on Eliza’s couch, eating baby carrots with his straight, glossy teeth. He had been staying at her London flat for five nights.

Jacques was Theo’s ex-boyfriend. He always acted like he didn’t believe a word Eliza said. If she said she liked blueberries, he raised his eyebrows like he highly doubted it. If she said Theo had flitted off to Paris, he questioned her about where, precisely, Theo was staying. He made Eliza feel illegitimate.

Pale and slim, Jacques belonged to the category of scrawny men who are uncomfortable when women are more muscular than they are. His joints seemed loosely attached, and the woven bracelet around his left wrist looked dirty. He had gone to Yale for world literature. He liked people to know he’d gone to Yale and often brought it up in conversation. He wore little spectacles, was developing a beard that never quite sprouted, and kept his long hair in a man bun on top of his head. He was twenty-two and working on his novel.

Right now, he was reading a book translated from the French. Albert Camus. He pronounced it Camoo. He was draped on the couch, not just sitting, and wore a sweatshirt and his boxer shorts.

Jacques was in the flat because of Theo’s death. He said he wanted to sleep on the fold-out couch in the den, to be near Theodosia’s things. More than once, Eliza found him taking Theo’s clothes out of the closet and smelling them. A couple of times he hung them from the window frames. He found Theodosia’s old books—early editions of Vanity Fair and other Victorian novels—and piled them next to his bed, as if he needed to see them before he fell asleep. Then he left the toilet seat up.

He and Eliza had been handling Theodosia’s death from the London end. Theodore and Anne were stuck in New York because of Theodore’s health. The Bartows had managed to keep the suicide out of all the papers. They said they didn’t want the publicity, and there was no question of foul play, according to the police. Even though her body hadn’t been found, no one doubted what had happened. Theo had left that note in the bread box.

Everyone agreed she must have been depressed. People jumped into the Thames all the time, said the police. If a person weighted herself down by jumping, as Theodosia had written she planned to do, there’s no telling how long it might take before a body was found.

Now Eliza sat next to Jacques and flipped on the TV. It was late-night BBC programming. The two of them had spent the day going through Theo’s kitchen, packing things as Anne had requested. It had been a long and emotional project.

“That girl looks like Theo,” Jacques said, pointing to an actress on the screen.

Eliza shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Yes, she does,” said Jacques. “To me, she does.”

“Not up close,” Eliza said. “She just has short hair. People think I look like Theo, too, from a distance.”

He looked at her steadily. “You don’t look like her, Eliza,” he said. “Theodosia was a million times prettier than you will ever be.”

Eliza glared. “I didn’t know we were getting hostile tonight. I’m kinda tired. Can we skip it, or are you really jonesing for an argument?”

Jacques leaned towards her, shutting his Camus. “Did Theo lend you money?” he asked.

“No, she didn’t,” Eliza answered truthfully.

“Did you want to sleep with her?”

“No.”

“Did you sleep with her?”

“No.”

“Did she have a new boyfriend?”

“No.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“There are six hundred things I’m not telling you,” Eliza said. “Because I’m a private person. And my friend just died. I’m sad and I’m trying to deal with it. Is that alright with you?”

“No,” said Jacques. “I need to understand what happened.”

“Look. The rule of you staying in this flat is, don’t ask Eliza a million questions about Theo’s private life. Or about Eliza’s private life. Then we can get along. Alright?”

Jacques sputtered. “The rule of this flat? What are you talking about, the rule of this flat?”

“Every place has rules. What you do when you come into a new place is, you figure them out. Like when you’re a guest, you learn the codes of behaviour and adapt. Yes?”

“Maybe that’s what you do.”

“That’s what everyone does. You work out how loud you can talk, how you can sit, what things are okay to say and what’s rude It’s called being a human in society.”

“Nah.” Jacques crossed his legs in a leisurely fashion. “I’m not that fake. I just do what feels right to me. And you know what? It’s never been a problem, until now.”

“Because you’re you.”

“What does that mean?”

“You’re a guy. You come from money, you’re white, you have good teeth, you graduated from Yale, the list goes on.”

“So?”

“Other people adapt to you, asshole. You think there’s no adapting going on, but you’re fucking blind, Jacques. It’s all around you, all the time.”

“That’s a point,” he said. “Okay, I’ll grant you that.”

“Thank you.”

“But if you’re thinking through all that lunacy every time you walk into a new situation, then there is something seriously wrong with you, Eliza.”

“My friend is dead,” she told him. “That’s what’s wrong with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y ikes
> 
> comments always appreciated :DD


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhhey sorry it's been a while rip
> 
> uhhahah don't judge my names?i 'm trying to make references but it''s all sounding awkward lmaO
> 
> also i said i wasn't gonna add burr or make him an asshole but guess what
> 
> i did both of those things
> 
> double update today hopefully? i'm like halfway through the next chapter i'll see
> 
> eheh i hope this isn't too shit ah

Theo hadn’t told her secrets to Jacques. She had told them to Elia.

Eliza had realised the truth of it early on, even before Theo had told Eliza her birth name, and before Dolley Madison had ever turned up at the Vineyard house.

It was the Fourth of July, not long after Eliza had first moved in. Theo had found a recipe for pizza dough you made on an outdoor grill. She was messing around with yeast in the kitchen. She had invited friends, summer people she’d met a couple of days earlier at a farmers’ market. They came over and ate. Everything was fine, but they wanted to leave early. “Let’s drive into town for the fireworks,” they said. “We shouldn’t miss them. Hurry up.”

Eliza knew Theodosia hated the crush of people at crowded events. She couldn’t see over people’s heads. There was always too much noise.

Jacques didn’t seem to care. He just got in the car with the summer people, stopping only to snag a box of cookies from the pantry.

Eliza stayed behind. She and Theo left the dishes for the cleaner and changed into swimsuits. Eliza pulled the lid off the hot tub, and Theo brought out tall glasses of seltzer with lemon.

They sat in silence for a bit. The evening had turned cool, and steam rose off the water.

“Do you like it here?” Theo asked finally. “In my house? With me?”

Eliza did, and she said so. When Theo finally looked at her expectantly, she added: “Every day there’s time to actually see the sky, and to taste what I’m eating. There’s room to stretch out. No work, no expectations, no adults.”

“We’re the adults,” said Theo, tilting her head back. “I think so, at least. You and me and Jacques, we’re the fucking adults, and that’s why it feels so good. Oops!” She had tipped her seltzer into the hot tub by accident. Now she chased around three slowly sinking pieces of sliced lemon until she caught them. “It’s good you like it here,” Theo said as she fished the last slice out, “because there was a part of living with Jacques that was like—being alone. I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s because he’s writing a novel, or because he’s older than I am. But it’s better with you here.”

“How did you meet him?”

“In London, I went to a summer program with his cousin, and then one day I was getting coffee at Black Dog and I recognized him from Instagram. We started talking. He was here for a month to work on his book. He didn’t know anybody. That was that, basically.” Theo trailed her fingers across the top of the water. “How about you? You seeing anybody?”

“There were some boyfriends at Stanford,” said Eliza. “But they’re still in California.”

“Some boyfriends?”

“Three boyfriends.”

“Three boyfriends is a lot, Eliza!”

Eliza shrugged. “I couldn’t decide.”

“When I first got to college,” Theo said, “Vivan Weisenbachfeld invited me to the Students of Colour Union party. You’ve heard me talk about Vivan, right? Anyway, her mom is Chinese American; her dad’s Korean Jewish. She was set on going to this party because some guy she crushed on would be there. I was a little nervous about being new, but that turned out fine. The awkward part was that everyone was all political and ambitious. Like, talking about protest rallies and philosophy reading lists and this Harlem Renaissance film series. At a party! I was like, when are we dancing? And the answer was never. Were parties like that at Stanford? With no beer and people being all intellectual?”

“Stanford has a Greek system.”

“Okay then, maybe not. Anyway, this tall black guy, really cute, was like, ‘You went to Greenbriar and you haven’t read James Baldwin? What about Toni Morrison? You should Ta-Nehisi Coates.’ And I said, ‘Hello? I just got to college. I haven’t read anybody yet!’ Vivian was next to me and she was all, ‘Dolley texted me and there’s another party that has a DJ, and the rugby team is there. Should we jet?” And I wanted to go to a party where there was dancing. So we left.” Theo ducked her head under the water of the hot tub and came back up again.

“What happened with the condescending guy?”

Theo laughed. “Aaron Burr. He’s why I’m telling this story. I went out with him for nearly two months. That’s how come I can remember the names of his favourite writers.”

“He was your boyfriend?”

“Yeah. He’d write me poems and leave them on my bicycle. He’d come over late at night, like at two in the morning, and say he missed me. But the pressure was on, too. He grew up in the Bronx and went to Stuy, and he was—“

“What’s Stuy?”

“Public school for smart kids in New York. He had a lot of ideas about what I should be, what I should study, what I should care about. He wanted to be the amazing older guy who would enlighten me. And I was flattered, and kind of in awe, but then also sometimes really bored.”

“So he was like Jacques.”

“What? No. I was so happy when I met Jacques because he was the opposite of Aaron.” Theo said it decisively, as if it were completely true. “Aaron liked me because I was ignorant and that meant he could teach me, right? That made him feel like a man. And he did know a lot of things that I never studied or experienced or whatever. But then—and this is irony—he was totally annoyed by my ignorance. And in the end, after he broke up with me and I was sad and mental, I came to the Vineyard and one day I thought: _Fuck you, Mr Aaron. I’m not so very ignorant. I just know stuff about stuff that you dismiss as unimportant and useless._ Does that make sense? I mean, I didn’t know _Aaron’s stuff_. And I do know Aaron’s stuff is important, but all the time I spent with him I felt like I was just so dumb and blank. The fact that I couldn’t understand his life experience very well, combined with how he was a year ahead of me and really into all his academics, the literary magazine, et cetera—that meant that all the time, he got to be the big man and I was looking up at him with wide eyes. And that was what he liked about me. _And_ why he despised me.

“Then there as this week I thought I was pregnant,” Theo went on. “Eliza, imagine. I’m an adopted kid. And there I am, pregnant with a kid I think I might have to put up for adoption. Or have aborted. The dad is a guy my parents met once and wrote him off as a party person—because of his colour and his hairstyle the one time they met him—and I have no idea what to do, so I spend all week skipping class and reading people’s abortion stories on the Internet. Then one day I finally get my period and I text Aaron. He drops everything and comes over to my dorm room—and he breaks up with me.” Theo puts her hands over her face. “I have never been as scared as I was that week,” she went on. “When I thought I had a baby inside me.”

• • •

That night, when Jacques came back from the fireworks, Theodosia had already gone to bed. Eliza was still awake, watching TV on the living room couch. She followed him as he rummaged in the fridge and found himself a beer and a leftover grilled pork chop. “Do you know how to cook?” she asked him.

“I can boil noodles. And heat up tomato sauce.”

“Theodosia’s really good.”

“Yeah. Nice for us, right?”

“She works hard in the kitchen. She taught herself by watching videos and getting cookbooks from the library.”

“Did she?” said Jacques mildly. “Hey, is there crumble left over? Crumble is necessary to my existence right now.”

“I ate it,” Eliza told him.

“Lucky girl,” he said. “All right, then. I’m gonna go work on my book. Night is when my brain works best."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment like and subscribe to my channel pls xd


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> double update! short chapter but shhh
> 
> i'm totally botching everyone's personalities in this fic and they're really closer to ocs than the musical characters but? fuckin come at me

One night, after Jacques had been staying with Eliza in London for a week, he bought the two of them tickets to see _A Winter’s Tale_ at the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was something to do. They needed to leave the flat.

They took the Jubilee line to the Central line to St. Paul’s and walked toward the theatre. It was raining. Since the show didn’t start for an hour, they found a pub and ordered fish and chips. The room was dark and the walls were lined with mirrors. They ate at the bar.

Jacques talked a great deal about books. Eliza asked him about the Camus he was reading, _L’Etranger_. She made him explain the plot, which was about a guy with a dead mother who kills another guy and then goes to prison for it.

“It’s a mystery?”

“Not at all,” said Jacques. “Mysteries perpetuate the status quo. Everything always wraps up at the end. Order is restored. But order doesn’t really exist, right? It’s an artificial construct. The whole genre of the mystery novel reinforces the hegemony of Western notions of causation. In _L’Etranger_ , you know everything that happens from the beginning. There’s nothing to find out, because human existence is ultimately meaningless.”

“Oh, it’s so hot when you say French words,” Eliza told him, reaching over to his plate and taking a chip. “Not.”

When the bill came, Jacques took out his credit card. “My treat, thanks to Archie Prevost.

“Your dad?”

“Yeah. He pays the bills on this baby”—Jacques tapped the card—“till I’m twenty-five. So I can work on my novel.”

“Lucky.” Eliza picked up the card. She memorised the number; she flipped it over and memorized the code on the back. “You don’t even see the bill?”

Jacques laughed and took it back. Pushed it across the bar. “Nah. It goes to Connecticut. But I try to stay conscious of my privilege and not take it for granted.”

As they walked the rest of the way to the Barbican Centre in the drizzle, Jacques held the umbrella over them both. He bought a program, the kind you can buy in London theatres that’s full of photographs and gives a history of the production. They sat down in the dark.”

During the intermission, Eliza leaned against one wall of the lobby and watched the crowd. Jacques went to the men’s room. Eliza listened to the accents of the theatregoers: London, Yorkshire, Liverpool. Boston, General American, California. South Africa. London again.

Damn.

Alexander Hamilton was here.

Right now. Across the lobby from Eliza.

He seemed very bright in the middle of the drab crowd. He had on a red T-shirt under a sport coat and wore blue-and-yellow track shoes. The bottom edges of his jeans were frayed. Alexander had a Caribbean mum and a white-hodgepodge-Scottish-American dad. That was how he described them. He had dark hair-cut short since she’d seen him last-and gentle-looking eyebrows. Round cheeks, brown eyes, and soft red lips, almost puffy. Straight teeth, Alexander was the kind of guy who travels around the world with nothing more than a backpack, who talks to strangers on carousels and in wax museums. He was a conversationalist without pretension. He liked people before he met them and usually thought the best of them afterwards. Right now he was eating Swedish Fish from a small yellow bag.

Eliza turned away. She didn’t like how happy she felt. She didn’t like how beautiful he was.

No. She didn’t want to see Alexander Hamilton.

She couldn’t see him. Not now, not ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DAMN I'M TRYING TO SOUND SMART BUT I'M NOT SO THIS UHHh--


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MAn i haven't updated for ,,,, a long time 
> 
> sorry!!! i'm alive , here 
> 
> a small update, hopefully i can get another out soon
> 
> \--small mention of suicide again--

She left the lobby promptly and headed back into the theatre. The double doors shut behind her. There weren't many audience members in there. Just ushers and a couple of elderly folk who hadn't wanted to leave their seats.

She had to get out as quickly as possible, without seeing Alexander. She grabbed her coat. She wouldn't wait for Jacques.

Was there a side exit somewhere?

She was running up the aisle with her jacket over her arm-and there he was. Standing in front of her. She stopped. There was no getting away from him now.

Alexander waved his bag of Swedish Fish. "Theodosia!" He ran the last length of the aisle and kissed her cheek. Eliza caught the whiff of sugar on his breath. "I am crazy glad to see you."

"Hello," she said coldly. "I thought you were in Thailand."

"Plans got delayed," Alexander said. "We pushed everything back." He stepped back as if to admire her. "You've got to be the prettiest girl in London. Yowza."

"Thanks."

"I mean it. Woman, not girl. Sorry. Are people following you around, like with their tongues hanging out? How did you get prettier since I last say you? It's terrifying. I'm talking too much because I'm nervous."

Eliza felt her skin warm.

"Come with me," he said. "I'll buy you tea. Or a coffee. Whatever you want. I miss you."

"I miss you, too." She didn't mean to say it. The words came out and they were true.

Alexander grabbed her hand, touching only her fingers. He had always been confident like that. Even though she'd rejected him, he could tell right away that she hadn't meant it. He was supremely gently and yet sure of himself at the same time. He touched her like the two of them were lucky to be touching each other; like he knew she didn't very often let anyone touch her. Fingertip to fingertip, he left Eliza back to the lobby.

"I only didn't call you because you told me not to call," Alexander said, letting go of her hand as they stepped into line for tea. "I want to call you all the time, Every day. I stare at my phone and then I don't call because I don't want to be creepy. I'm so glad I ran into you. God, you're pretty."

Eliza liked how his T-shirt lay against his collarbone, and the way his wrists moved against the fabric of his jacket. He bit his lower lip when he was worried. His face curved softly against the black of his eyelashes. She wanted to see him first thing in the morning. She felt like if she could just see Alexander Hamilton first thing in the morning, everything would be okay.

"You still don't want to go home to New York?" he asked.

"I don't want to go home, ever," said Eliza. Like so many things she found herself saying to him, it was absolutely true. Her eyes filled.

"I don't want to go home, either," he said. Alexander's father was a real estate mogul who had been indicted for insider trading some months ago. It had been all over the news. "My mum left my dad when she found out what he'd been doing. Now she's living with her sister and commuting to work from New Jersey. Things are all mangled with the money and there are divorce lawyers and criminal lawyers and mediators. Ugh."

"I'm sorry."

"It's just ugly. My dad's brother is being a giant racist about the divorce. You wouldn't believe what's come out of his mouth. And so my mother is full of venom, frankly. She has a right to be, but it's hellish to even talk to her on the phone. I don't think there's anything, really, to go back to."

"What will you do?"

"Travel around some more. My friend will be ready to go in a couple weeks, and then we'll backpack through Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, same plan as before. Then to Hong Kong, and we'll go across to see my cousin in Saint Kitts." He took Eliza's hand again. He ran his finger softly across her palm. "You're not wearing your rings." Her nails were painted with pale pink polish.

"Just the one." Eliza showed him her other hand, which had the jade viper on it. "The others all belonged to this friend of mine. I was only borrowing them."

"I thought they were yours."

"No. Yes. No." Eliza sighed.

"Which is it?"

"My friend killed herself not that long ago. We argued, and she died angry at me." Eliza was telling the truth, and she was lying. Being with Alexander muddled her thinking. She knew she shouldn't talk to him anymore. She could feel the stories she told herself and the stories she told other shifting around, overlapping, changing shades. She couldn't tell, tonight, what the names of those stories were, what she meant and what she didn't.

Alexander squeezed her hand. "I'm sorry."

Elia blurted: "Tell me, do you think a person is as bad as her worst actions?"

"What?"

"Do you think a person is as bad as her worst actions?"

"You mean, will your friend go to hell because she killed herself?"

"No." That wasn't what Eliza meant at all. "I mean, do our worst actions define us when we're alive? Or do you think human beings are better than the very worst things we've ever done?"

Alexander thought. "Well, take Leontes in A Winter's Tale. He tried to poison his friend, he threw his own wife in prison, and he abandoned his baby in the wilderness. So he's the absolute worst. Right?"

"Right."

"But in the end-have you seen it before tonight?"

"No."

"At the end, he's sorry. He's just really, really sorry about everything and that's enough. Everyone forgives him. Shakespeare let Leontes be redeemed even though he did all that even stuff."

Eliza wanted to tell Alexander everything.

She wanted to reveal her past to him in its ugliness and beauty, its courage and complexity. She would be redeemed.

She could not speak.

"Ohhh," said Alexander, drawing out the word. "We're not talking about the play, are we?"

Eliza shook her head.

"I'm not angry with you, Theodosia," said Alexander. "I am crazy about you." He reached out and touched her cheek. Then he ran the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. "I'm sure your friend isn't still angry with you, either, whatever happened when she was alive. You're a top-notch, excellent person. I can tell."

They had reached the front of the line. "Two cups of tea," Eliza said to the lady at the counter. Her eyes leaked even though she was not crying. She had to stop being emotional.

"This seems like a dinner conversation," said Alexander. He paid for the tea. "Do you want to get dinner after the play? Or bagels? I know a pub that serves real New York bagels."

Eliza knew she should say no, but she nodded.

"Bagels, good. So for now, let's talk about cheerful things," said Alexander. They brought their drinks in paper cups over to a stand with milk and coffee spoons. "I take two sugars and a giant glug of cream. How do you drink it?"

"With lemon," Eliza said. "I need like four slices of lemon for tea."

"Okay, cheerful, distracting things," Alexander said as they walked to a table. "Shall I talk about myself?"

"I don't think anyone could stop you."

He laughed. "When I was eight, I broke my angle jumping off the roof of my cousin's car. I had a dog named Twister and a hamster named St George. I wanted to be a detective when I was a boy. And I haven't been out with anyone since you told me not to call you."

She smiled in spite of herself. "Liar."

"Not one single woman. I'm here tonight with Owen Price."

"That friend of your dad's?"

"The one I'm staying with. He said I hadn't seen London if I hadn't seen the RSC. And you?"

Eliza was brought back to reality.

She was here with Jacques.

It had been stupid, unthinkably stupid, to let Alexander derail her.

She had been leaving the theatre. But then he'd brushed her cheek with his lips. He had touched her fingers. He'd noticed her hands and he'd said God, she was pretty. He'd said he wanted to call her every day.

Eliza had missed Alexander very much.

But Jacques was here.

They couldn't meet. Alexander must absolutely not see Jacques.

"Listen, I have to-"

Jacques appeared at her elbow. He was languid and slouching. "You found a friend," he said to Eliza. He said it as if speaking to a puppy.

They had to leave immediately. Eliza stood up. "I'm not feeling well," she said. "I got a head rush. I'm nauseated. Can you take me home?" She grabbed Jacques' wrist and pulled him toward the lobby doors.

"You were fine a minute ago," he said, trailing behind her.

"Great to see you," she called to Alexander. "Goodbye."

She had intended Alexander to stay rooted in his seat, but he got up and followed Eliza and Jacques to the door. "I'm Alexander Faucette-Hamilton," he said, smiling at Jacques as they walked. "I'm a friend of Theodosia's."

"We have to go," Eliza said.

"Jacques Prevost," Jacques responded. "You've heard, then?"

"Let's go," said Eliza. "Now."

"Heard what?" said Alexander. He kept pace as Eliza pulled Jacques outside.

"Sorry, sorry," Eliza said. "Something is wrong with me. Get a taxi. Please."

They were outside now, in heavy rain. The Barbican Centre had long walkways leading to the street. Eliza pulled Jacques along the pavement.

Alexander stopped under the shelter of the building, unwilling to get wet.

Eliza flagged a black taxi. Got in. Gave the address of the flat in St. John's Wood.

Then she took a deep breath and settled her mind. She decided what to tell Jacques.

"I left my jacket on my seat," he complained. "Are you sick?"

"No, not really."

"Then what was it? Why are we going home?"

"That guy has been bothering me."

"Alexander?"

"Yes. He calls me all the time. Like, many times a day. Texts. Emails. I think he's following me."

"You have weird relationships."

"It's not a relationship. He doesn't take no for an answer. That's why I had to get away."

"Alexander something Hamilton, right?" said Jacques. "That was his name?"

"Yeah."

"Is he related to James Hamilton?"

"I don't know."

"But was that the last name? Hamilton?" Jacques had his phone out. "On Wikipedia it says - yeah, the son of James Hamilton, the D and G trading scandal, blah, blah, his son is Alexander Faucette-Hamilton."

"I guess so," said Eliza. "I think about him as little as a possibly can."

"Hamilton, that's funny," said Jacuqes. "Did Theodosia meet him?"

"Yes. No." She was flustered.

"Which is it?"

"Their families know each other. We ran into him when we first got to London."

"And now he's stalking you?"

"Yes."

"And it never occurred to you that this stalker Hamilton might be worth mentioning to the police in terms of investigating Theo's disappearance?"

"He has nothing to do with anything."

"He might. There are a lot of things that don't add up."

"Theo killed herself and there's nothing more to it," snapped Eliza. "She was depressed and she didn't love you anymore and she didn't love me enough to stay alive, either. Stop acting like there's anything else that could have happened."

Jacques bit his lip and they rode in silence. After a minute or two, Eliza looked over and saw that he was crying.

•  •  •

In the morning, Jacques was gone. He was simply not on the fold-out couch. His bag was not in the hall closet. His fuzzy man-sweaters were not lying around the room. His laptop was gone and so were his French novels. He had left his dirty dishes in the sink.

Eliza wouldn't miss him. She never wanted to see him again. But she didn't want him leaving without saying why.

What had Alexander said to Jacques the night before? Only "I'm a friend of Imogen's" and "Heard what?"-and his name. That was all.

He hadn't heard Alexander call Eliza Theodosia. Had he?

No.

Maybe.

No.

Why did Jacques want Alexander investigated? Did he think Theodosia had been stalked and murdered? Did he think Theodosia had been romantically involved with Alexander? Did he think Eliza was lying?

Eliza packed her bags and went to a youth hostel she'd read about, on the other end of town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos always appreciated! thank uwu


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> heey i'm back lmao
> 
> hhh warnings for suicide mentions, suicide notes, suicidal thoughts sort of? it's not explicit
> 
> UPDATE: h*ck i was just reading through this and i drafted this twice and somehow i still have so many typos wtf?? i'm so sleep deprived oh my gosh
> 
> enjoy hhhH

THIRD WEEK OF FEBRUARY, 2017  
LONDON

Eight days before Eliza left for the youth hostel, she called Jacques' cell from the London flat. Her hands were shaking. She sat on the kitchen counter next to the bread box and let her feet dangle. It was very early in the morning. She wanted to get this call over with.

"Hey, Eliza," he said. "Is Theodosia back?"

"No, she's not."

"Oh." There was a pause. "Then why are you calling me?" The disdain in Jacques' voice was palpable.

"I have some bad news," Eliza said. "I'm sorry."

"What is it?"

"Where are you?"

"In the newsagent's. Which is apparently what they call newsstands over here."

"You should step outside."

"All right." Eliza waited while he walked. "What is it?" Jacques asked.

"I found a note, in the flat. From Theo."

"What kind of a note?"

"It was in the bread box. I'm going to read it." Eliza held the note in her fingers. There were the tall, loopy letters of Theo's signature, her typical phrases, and her favourite words.

Hey, Eliza. By the time you read this, I'll have taken an overdose of sleeping pills. Then I'll have hailed a taxi to the Westminster Bridge.  
I'll have stones in my pockets. Lots of stones. I've been collecting them all week. And I will be drowned. The river will have me and I will feel some relief.  
I'm sure you'll wonder why. It's hard to give an answer. Nothing is right. I don't feel at home anywhere. I haven't ever felt at home. I don't think I ever will.  
Jacques couldn't understand.  
Neither could Dolley. But you-I think you can. You know the me that nobody else can love. If there is a me, at all.  
Theo.

"Oh god. Oh god." Jacques said it over and over.

Eliza thought of the beautiful Westminster Bridge with its stone arches and its green railings, and of heavy, cold river flowing underneath it. She thought of Theo's body, a white shirt floating around her, face down in the water, in a pool of blood. She really did feel the loss of Theodosia Bartow acutely, more than Jacques ever could. "She wrote the note days ago," Eliza told Jacques when he finally went silent. "She's been gone since Wednesday."

"You said she went to Paris."

"I was guessing."

"Maybe she didn't jump."

"She left a suicide note."

"But why? Why would she?"

"She never felt at home. You know that was true about her. She said it in the note." Eliza swallowed and then said what she knew Jacques would want to hear. "What do you think we should do? I don't know what to do. You're the first person I told."

"I'm coming over," said Jacques. "Call the police.

• • •

Jacques arrived at the flat two hours later. He looked hollow and dishevelled. He brought his bags from the hotel and declared he would sleep on the couch in the dens until things were settled. Eliza could take the bedroom. Neither of them should be alone, he said.

She didn't want him there. She was feeling sad and vulnerable. With Jacques, she preferred to have her armour on. Still, he was good in a criis, she gave him that. He set himself to texting and telephoning people, and he talked to everyone with an extreme gentleness Eliza hadn't known he possessed. The Bartows, their friends from Martha's Vineyard, Theo's college friends: Jacques got in touch with everyone personally, checking them neatly off a list he'd made.

Eliza called the London police. They came in, bustling, while Jacques was on the phone with Anne. The cops took the note in Theodosia's handwriting, then asked for statements from Eliza and Jacques.

They agreed it didn't look like Theo had gone traveling. Her suitcases were in the closet, as were her clothes. Her wallet and credit cards were in a bag they found. Her laptop wasn't in the flat, however, and her driver's license and passport were missing.

Jacques asked a police officer if the suicide note could be a forgery. "Maybe a kidnapper wanted to put suspicion elsewhere," he said. "Or maybe it was a note she was forced to write? Is there a way you could tell if she was forced to write it?"

"Jacques, the note was in the bread box," Eliza reminded him gently. "Theo left it for me in the bread box."

"Why would Miss Bartow be kidnapped?" asked the officer.

"Money. Someone could be holding her for ransom. It's strange that her laptop is missing. Or she could have been murdered. Like, by someone who made her write the note."

The officers listened to Jacques theories. They pointed out that he himself was the most suspicious person: an ex-boyfriend who had recently arrived in the city looking for Theodosia. But they also made it clear they didn't really suspect a crime of any kind. They looked for signs of struggle but found none.

Jacques said Theodosia could have been abducted from outside the apartment, but the police officers reminded him about the bread box. "Suicide note makes it clear," they said. They asked if that was Theo's handwriting, and Eliza said it was. They asked Jacques, and he said it was, too. Or at least, it looked like it.

Eliza gave them Theodosia's UK phone. It showed only calls to local museums and emails from her parents, Jacques, Vivan Weisenbachfeld, and a few more friends Eliza could identify. The officers asked for Theo's bank records. Eliza gave them some papers printed out from the missing computer. They were in a drawer of the desk in the living room.

The officers promised to search the river for Theodosia's body, but they also noted that if her body was weighted with stones, it wouldn't surface easily. It had probably been moved away from the Westminster Bridge by the current.

If they found her at all, it might take days or even weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comment?


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhhhh i'm getting sick and am so ostired please bring any spelling/grammar mistakes to my attention!! thank you rip

END OF DECEMBER, 2016  
LONDON

Six weeks earlier, Eliza arrived in London the first time. It was the day after Christmas. She took a cab to the hotel she'd booked. The English money was too large to fit neatly in her wallet. The cab was mad expensive, but she didn't care. She was funded.

The hotel was an old and formal building, remodelled inside. A gentleman wearing a checked jacket sat at a desk. He had a record of the reservation and showed Eliza to her room personally. He chatted while a porter carried her things. She loved the way he talked, as if he'd stepped out of a Dickens novel.

The walls of the suite were papered in black-and-white toile. Heavy brocade curtains covered the windows. The bathroom had heated floors. The towels were cram-coloured and textured with small squares. Lavender soap was wrapped in brown paper.

Eliza ordered a steak from room service. When it came, she ate the whole thing and drank two large glasses of water. After that, she slept for eighteen hours.

When she woke, she was elated.

This was a new city and a foreign country, the city of Vanity Fair and Great Expectations. It was Theo's city, but it would become Theo's own, just as the books Theo loved had become part of Eliza, too.

She pushed open the curtains. London stretched out below her. Red buses and beetle-black taxis crawled through traffic on narrow streets. The buildings looked hundreds of years old. She thought of all the lives being led down there, people driving on the left, eating crumpets, drinking tea, watching telly.

Eliza was stripped of guilt and sorrow, as if she'd shed a skin. She saw herself as a lone vigilante, a superhero in repose, a spy. She was braver than anyone in the hotel, braver than all of London, braver than ordinary by far.

• • •

Back in the summer on Martha's Vineyard, Theo had told Elia about owning a flat in London. She had said, "The keys are right here. We could go tomorrow," and patted her bag.

But she hadn't mentioned it ever again.

Now Eliza had called the building manager who handled the flat and told him Theo was in town. Could he arrange for clean-up and an airing? Could some groceries be brought in, and fresh flowers? Yes, everything could be arranged.

When the flat was ready, Theo's key turned easily in the lock. The place was a large one-bedroom with a den in St. John's Wood, near lots of shops. It occupied the top floor or a white town house and had windows that looked out onto trees. The cupboards held soft towels and sheets with a ticking stripe. There was only a bathtub, no shower. The fridge was tiny and the kitchen barely furnished. Theo had fixed up the flat before she'd learned to cook. But that didn't matter.

The June after high school graduation, Eliza knew, Theodosia had attended a summer abroad program in London. While she was there, she bought the flat with encouragement from her financial advisor. The sale had gone through quickly, and Theo and her friends had shopped in the Portobello Road market for antiques and in Harrods for textiles. Theo had covered the front door with instant photographs from that summer-maybe fifty of them. Most featured her and a crew of girls and boys, arms around each other, in front of places like the Tower of London or Madame Tussauds.

Eliza put her things way in the flat and then took the photographs down. She threw them in the trash and took the garbage bag down to the basement.

• • •

In the weeks that followed, Eliza acquired a new laptop and put the two old ones in the incinerator. She went to museums and restaurants, eating steaks in quiet establishments and burgers in noisy pubs. She was charming with servers. She chatted with booksellers and told them Theo's name. She talked to tourists-temporary people-and sometimes went to a meal with them or joined them at the theatre. She felt as she imagined Theo would: welcome everywhere. She worked out every day and ate only food she liked. Other than that, she lived Theodosia's life.

At the start of her third week in London, Eliza went to Madame Tussauds. The museum is a famous attraction, full of Bollywood actors, members of the royal family, and the dimpled stars of boy bands, all sculpted in wax. The place was crowded with loud American children and their aggravated parents.

Eliza was looking at the wax model of Charles Dickens, who sat morosely in a hard wooden chair, when someone spoke to her.

"If he lived now," said Alexander Hamilton, "he'd have shaved that baldy head."

"If he lived now," said Eliza, "he'd be a TV writer."

"Do you remember me?" he asked. "I'm Alexander. We met in the summer on Martha's Vineyard." He had a bashful grin. He was wearing old jeans and soft orange T-shirt. Beat up Vans. He'd been backpacking, Eliza knew. "You changed your hair," he added. "I wasn't sure it was you, at first."

He looked good. Eliza had forgotten how good he looked. She had kissed him once. His thick black hair was in his face. His cheeks looked slightly sunburnt and his lips a bit chapped. Maybe he'd been skiing.

"I remember you," she said. "You can't decide between butterscotch and hot fudge, you get sick on carousels, you might want to be a doctor someday. You actually play golf, which is stodgy; you're travelling the world, which is interesting; you follow girls around museums and sneak up on them when they stop to look at a famous novelist made of wax."

"I'm just gonna say thank you," said Alexander, "even though you made mean remarks about golf. I'm glad you remember me. Have you read him?" He pointed at Dickens. "I was supposed to in school, but I blew it off."

"Yeah."

"What's the best one, you think?"

" _Great Expectations_."

"What's it about?" Alexander wasn't looking at the waxwork. He was looking at Eliza, intently. He reached out and ran his hand down her arm while she answered. It was a very confident move, to touch her like that, seconds after reintroducing himself. She didn't usually let people touch her, but she didn't mind with Alexander. He was very gentle.

"This orphan boy falls in love with a rich girl," she told him. "Her name is Estella. And Estella has been trained her whole life to break men's hearts, and perhaps she has no heart of her own. She was brought up by a crazy lady who was jilted at the altar."

"So this Estella breaks the boy's heart?"

"Many times over. On purpose. Estella doesn't' know how to do anything else. Breaking hearts is her only power in the world." They walked away from Dickens and into a different section of the museum. "Are you here on your own?" Eliza asked.

"With a friend of my dad's. I've been staying with him for a few days. He wants to show me the city, only he keeps having to sit down. Artie Thatcher, you know him?"

"No."

"His sciatica flared. He went to resting the tea shop."

"And how come you're in London?"

"I did the backpacking thing through Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, the Netherlands, France again. Then I came here. I was travelling with my friend, but he went home for Christmas, and I didn't feel like going back, so I came to stay with Artie for the holidays. You?"

"I have a flat here."

Alexander leaned in close and pointed down a dark hall. "Hey, there's the Chamber of Horrors, down that hall. Will you go in there with me? I need protections."

"From what?"

"From the crazy-scary waxworks, that's what," Alexander said. "It's going to be a prison with escaped inmates. I looked it up. Lots of blood and guts."

"And you want to go?"

"I love blood and guts. But not alone." He smiled. "Are you coming to protect me from the inmates of the asylum, Theodosia?" They stood at the door to the Chamber of Horrors now.

"Sure," said Eliza. "I'll protect you."


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for 100 hits ii it's a milestone hh hh i'd say my one (1) achievement is getting 100K reads on wattpad on my awful awful lams fanfic 2 years ago , i dread its mention to this day
> 
> mood is writing this while listening to don't stop me.by the man malloy himsefl.  
> sorry for any typos, still a bit out of it.
> 
> mentions of death and suicide

There had never been three boyfriends at Stanford.

There had never been three boyfriends anywhere. Or even one boyfriend.

Eliza didn't need a guy, wasn't sure she liked guys, wasn't sure she liked anyone.

She was supposed to meet Alexander at eight o'clock. She brushed her teeth three times and changed her clothes twice. She put on jasmine perfume.

When she spotted him waiting by the carousel where they had arranged to meet, she nearly turned around and left. Alexander was watching a street performer. He had his scarf wrapped tightly against the January wind.

Eliza told herself she shouldn't get close to people. No one was worth the risk. She would leave right now, she was about to leave-but then Alexander saw her and ran at her, top speed, like a little boy, stopping short before he crashed. He swung her around by the wrists and said, "Jeez, it's like a movie. Can you believe we're in London? Everything we know is on the other side of the ocean."

And he was right. Everything was on the other side of the ocean.

Tonight would be okay.

Alexander took Eliza walking along the Thames. Street performers played accordions and walked low tightropes. The two of them poked around in a bookshop for a while, and then Eliza bought them both cotton candy. Folding sweet pink clouds into their mouths, they walked along to the Westminster Bridge.

Alexander took Eliza's hand and she let him. He rubbed her wrist softly now and then with the pad of his thumb. It sent a warm thrill up her arm. She was surprised that his touch could feel so comforting.

The Westminster Bridge was a series of stone arches over the river, grey and green. Light from the lamps on top of the bridge shone onto the rushing river.

"The worst thing in the Chamber of Horrors was Jack the Ripper," said Alexander. "Know why?"

"Why?"

"One, because he was never caught. And two, because there's a rumour that he killed himself by jumping off this exact bridge."

"Get out."

"He did. He was probably standing right here when he jumped. I read it on the Internet."

"That is complete trash," said Eliza. "No one even knows who Jack the Ripper really was."

"You're right," he said. "It is trash."

He kissed her then, under the streetlight. Like a scene from a film. The stones were damp in the fog and glistened. Their coats flapped in the wind. Eliza shivered in the night air, and Alexander put his warm hand against her neck.

He kissed like he couldn't imagine wanting to be anywhere else on the planet, because wasn't this so nice, and didn't this feel good? As if he knew she didn't let people touch her, and he knew she would let him touch her, and he was the luckiest guy in the world. Eliza felt as if the river underneath her were running through her veins.

She wanted to be herself with him.

Wondered if she was being herself. If she could go on being herself.

And if anyone could love the person she was.

They pulled apart and walked in silence for a minute. A crowd of four drunk young women headed toward them, crossing the bridge precariously on high heels. "I can't believe they made us leave," one of them complained, slurring her words.

"They should want our business, those buggers," said another. Their accents were Yorkshire.

"Ooh, he's cute." The first one looked at Alexander from ten feet away.

"You think he wants to go get a drink?"

"Ha! Cheeky."

"I dunno. Ask him."

One woman called out, "If you want a night out, good sir, you can come along with us."

Alexander blushed. "What?"

"Are you coming?" she asked. "Just you."

Alexander shook his head. The women walked away, giggling, and he watched them until they were off the bridge. Then he took Eliza's hand again.

The mood was different, though. They no longer knew what to say to each other.

Finally, Alexander said: "Did you know Dolley Madison?"

What?

Theodosia's friend Dolley. What did Alexander have to do with Dolley?

Eliza made her voice light. "Yeah, from Vassar. How come?"

"Dolley-she passed away about a week ago." Alexander looked at the ground.

"What? Oh no."

"I didn't mean to be the one to tell you. I didn't put it together that you'd know her till now," said Alexander. "And then it popped out."

"How do you know Dolley?"

"I don't, really. She was friends with my sister from summer camp."

"What happened?" Eliza wanted to hear his answer, desperately, but she calmed her voice.

"It was an accident. She was up in a park north of San Francisco. She was there visiting some friends who went to college in the city, but they were busy or something, and Dolley went hiking. It was a day hike, but late, when it was getting dark. She was on a nature preserve by herself. And she just-she fell off this walkway. A walkway over a ravine."

"She fell?"

"They think she'd been drinking. She hit he head and nobody found her till this morning. Except some animals. The body was pretty messed up."

Eliza shivered. She thought of Dolley Madison, with her loud, show-off laugh. Dolley, who drank too much. Dolley, with that perverse streak of humour, the sleek brown hair and seal-like body. The entitled set of her jaw. Silly, petty, harsh Dolley. "How do they know what happened?"

"She tipped herself over the railing. Maybe climbing up to see something. They found her car in the lot with an empty vodka bottle in it."

"Was it suicide?"

"No, no. Just an accident. It was in the news today, like a cautionary tale. You know, always take a buddy when you go out in nature. Don't drink vodka and then hike across a ravine. Her family got worried when she didn't come home for Christmas Eve, but the police assumed she'd just gone deliberately missing."

Eliza felt cold and strange. She hadn't thought of Dolley since she'd gotten to London. She could have looked her up online, but she hadn't. She had cut Dolley out completely. "You're sure it was an accident?"

"A terrible accident," said Alexander. "I'm so sorry."

They walked for a ways in awkward silence.

Alexander pulled his hat down over his ears.

After a minute, Eliza reached over and took his hand again. She wanted to touch him. Admitting that and doing it felt more like an act of bravery than any fight she had ever been in. "Let's not think about it," she said. "Let's be on the other side of the ocean and feel lucky."

She let him walk her home, and he kissed her again in front of her building. They huddled together on the steps to keep warm as merry snowflakes drifted through the air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes
> 
> Also - - i'm thinking there will be about 20 more chapters, approximately. i'm not completely sure. would you prefer i make the chapters longer? easily done
> 
> please leave comments and kudos mm idk if anyone is even reading this :")


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> catch me spending w,,ay too long researching british candy,,,,,, i mentioned it like twice wowow
> 
> i do love swedish fish tho i wish they had them in australia gosh

Early the next day, Alexander shows up at the flat carrying a tote bag. Eliza was wearing pajama pants and a camisole when he rang the buzzer. She made him wait in the hall until she put clothes on.

"I'm borrowing my friend's house in Dorset," he said, following her to the kitchen. "And I rented a car. Everything else anyone could possibly need for a weekend away is in this bag."

Eliza peered into the sack he held out: four Crunchie bars, Hula Hoops, Swedish Fish, two bottles of seltzer, and a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. "You don't have any clothes in there. Or even a toothbrush."

"Those are for amateurs."

She laughed. "Ew."

"Okay, fine, I have my backpack in the car. But these are the important items," Alexander said. "We can say Stonehenge on the way. Have you seen it?"

"No." Eliza was indeed particularly curious to see Stonehenge, which she'd read about in a Thomas Hardy novel she'd bought in a San Francisco bookshop, but she wanted to see all the things-that was how she felt. All of London she hadn't yet seen, all of England, all of the great wide world-and to feel free, powerful, and yes, entitled, to witness and understand what was out there.

"It'll have ancient mystery, so that'll be good," said Alexander. "Then when we get to the house, we can hike around and look at sheep in meadows. Or take pictures of sheep. Maybe pat them. Whatever people do in the countryside."

"Are you inviting me?"

"Yes! There will be separate bedrooms. Available."

He perched himself on the edge of her kitchen chair, as if unsure of his welcome. As if maybe he'd been too forward.

"You're nervous right now," she said, stalling for time.

She wanted to say yes. She knew she shouldn't.

"Yeah, I'm very nervous."

"Why?"

Alexander thought for a moment. "The states are higher now. It matters to me what your answer is." He stood up slowly and kissed the side of her neck. She leaned into him, and he was shaking a little. She kissed his soft earlobe and then his lips, standing on tiptoe there in the kitchen.

"Is that a yes?" he whispered.

Eliza knew she shouldn't go.

It was the worst idea. She had left this possibility behind long ago. Love was what you gave up when you became-whatever she was now. Larger than life. Dangerous. She had taken risks and reinvented herself.

Now this boy was in her kitchen, trembling when he kissed her, holding a bag of junk food and fizzy water. Talking nonsense about sheep.

Eliza crossed to the other side of the room and washed her hands in the sink. She felt as if the universe was offering her something beautiful and special. It wouldn't' come around again with another such offer.

Alexander walked over and put his hand on her shoulder, very, very gently, as if asking permission. As if in awe that he was allowed to touch her.

And Eliza turned around and told him yes.

• • •

Stonehenge was closed.

And it was raining.

You couldn't get close to the actual stones unless you'd bought tickets ahead of time.

Eliza and Alexander could see some big rocks in the distance as they drove up, but from the visitors' centre, nothing.

"I promised you ancient mystery, and now it's nothing but a parking lot," said Alexander, half sad and half joking, as they got back in the car. "I should have looked it up."

"That's all right."

"I do know how to work the internet."

"Oh, don't worry. I'm more excited about the sheep anyway."

He smiled. "Are you really?"

"Sure. Can you guarantee sheep?"

"Are you serious? Because I don't think I _can_ actually guarantee sheep. And I don't want to let you down again."

"No. I don't care about sheep at all."

Alexander shook his head. "I should have known. Sheep are not Stonehenge. We have to face that. Even the very best sheep are never going to be Stonehenge."

"Let's eat the Swedish Fish," she said. To cheer him up.

"Perfect," said Alexander. "That is a perfect plan."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nobody responded about long chapters but
> 
> i was actually considering changing up the format again completely?? am i crazy  
> it would make the plot easier to follow but would confuse anyone halfway into the book i think
> 
> if anyone has objections or suggests please comment! if not i'll probably do it l mao  
> watch out


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yokes ya ll it's been so long since i've posted hhheck 
> 
> so much school work
> 
> FORTUNATELY tomorrow is the last day of term?
> 
> UNFORTATELY i'm not gonna be able to post over the holiday because i'll be away in europe for a music tour!! (unfortunately for you, i'm way way excited. srsly tho if anyone lives in eastern europe hmu that would be super cool)
> 
> i've also been sick for the last week,, but i'll try to squeeze at least one or two more chapters out before sunday. (we're away for literally the day after school ends to the day before school starts- i am going tobe s o exhausted )
> 
> S o sorry!! here yal, go

The house wasn't a house at all. It was a mansion. A great house, built in the nineteenth century. It had grounds and a gated entryway. Alexander had a code for the gate. He punched it in and drove along a curving driveway.

The walls were brick and covered with ivy. On one side, there was a sloping garden of rosebushes and stone benches, ending at a round gazebo by the edge of a stream.

Alexander fumbled in his pockets. "I have the keys in here somewhere."

It was raining hard now. They stood in the doorway, holding their bags.

"Damn, where are they?" Alexander patted his jacket, his pants, his jacket again. "Keys, keys." He looked in his tote bag. Looked in his backpack. Ran out and looked in the car.

He sat down in the doorway, under cover from the rain, and pulled everything out of his pockets. Then everything out of the tote bag. And everything out of the backpack.

"You don't have the keys," Eliza said.

"I don't have the keys."

He was a con artist, a hustler. He wasn't Alexander Faucette-Hamilton at all. What proof had Eliza seen? No ID, no online photos. Just what he told her, his manner, his knowledge of Theodosia's family. "Are you really friends with these people?" she asked, making her voice light.

"It's my friend John's family's country house. He had me here in the summer as a guest, and no one is using it, and-I knew the gate code, didn't I?"

"I'm not actually doubting you," she lied.

"We can go around the back and see if the kitchen door is open. There's a kitchen garden, from-from whenever in history they had kitchen gardens," said Alexander. "I think the technical term is ye olden days."

They pulled their jackets over their heads and ran through the rain, stepping in puddles and laughing.

Alexander jiggled the kitchen door. It was locked. He wandered around, looking under rocks for a spare key, while Eliza huddled under the umbrella.

She pulled out her phone and searched his name, looking for images.

Phew. He was definitely Alexander Hamilton. There were photographs of him at charity fund-raisers, standing next to his parents, wearing no tie at an event where clearly men were supposed to wear ties. Pictures of him with other guys on a soccer field. A high school graduation photo that showed a mouth full of braces and a bad of haircut, posted by an aunt who had blogged total of three times.

Eliza was glad he as Alexander and not some hustler. She liked what a good person he was. It was better that he was genuine because she could believe in him. But there was so much of Alexander that Eliza would never know. So much history he'd never get to tell her.

Alexander gave up hunting for the key. His hair was soaked. "The windows are alarmed," he said. "I think it's hopeless."

"What should we do?"

"We better go in the gazebo and kiss for a while," said Alexander.

• • •

The rain didn't let up.

They drove in damp clothes toward London and stopped at a pub to eat fried food.

Alexander pulled the car up to Eliza's building. He didn't kiss her but reached his hand out to hold hers. "I like you," he said. "I thought-I guess I made that clear already? But I thought I should say it."

Eliza liked him back. She liked herself with him.

But she wasn't herself with him. She didn't know what it was, or even who it was, the Alexander liked.

Could be Theo. Could be Eliza.

She wasn't sure where to draw the line between them anymore. Eliza smelled of jasmine like Theodosia, Eliza spoke like Theodosia, Eliza loved the books Theo loved. Those things were true. Eliza was an orphan like Theo, a self-created person, a person with a mysterious past. So much of Theodosia was in Eliza, she felt, and so much of Eliza was in Theodosia.

But Alexander thought Anne and Theodore were her parents. He thought she'd been to college with poor dead Dolley Madison. He thought she was Jewish and rich and owned a London flat. Those lies were part of what he liked. It was impossible to tell him the truth, and even if she did, he'd hate her for the lie.

"I can't see you," she told him.

"What?"

"I can't see you. Like this. At all."

"Why not?"

"I just can't."

"Is there someone else? That you're going out with? I could take a number or get in line or something."

"No. Yes. No."

"Which is it? Can I change your mind?"

"I'm not available." She could tell him she had someone else, but she didn't want to lie to him anymore.

"Why not?"

She opened the car door. "I have no heart."

"Wait."

"No."

"Please wait."

"I have to go."

"Did you have a bad time? I mean, aside from the rain, no Stonehenge, no country house, no sheep? Aside from the fact that was a day of disaster upon disaster?"

Eliza wanted to stay in the car. To touch his lips with her fingertips and to relax into being Theo and to let the lies build up on each other.

But it would not do.

"Leave me the fuck alone, Alexander," she snapped. She pushed open the car door and stepped into the downpour.

• • •

A couple of weeks went by. Eliza kept her eyebrows plucked thin. She bought clothes and more clothes, lovely things with fat price tags. She bought cookbooks for the flat's kitchen, though she never used them. She went to the ballet, to the opera, to the theatre. She saw all the things, historic sites and museums and famous buildings. She bought antiques on Portobello Road.

Late one night, Jacques showed up at the flat. He was supposed to be in America.

Eliza forced down panic as she looked through the peephole. She wanted to open the window and climb the drainpipe to the roof, leap onto the next building, and, frankly, just not be home. She wanted to change her eyebrows and her hair and her makeup and-

He rang the buzzer a second time. Eliza settled on taking off her rings and putting on joggers and a T-shirt instead of the maxi dress she'd been wearing. She stood before the door and reminded herself that she had always known Jacques might show up. It was Theo's flat. She had a strategy. She could handle him.

She unlocked the door.

"Jacques. What a great surprise."

"Eliza."

"You look tired. Are you okay? Come in."

He was holding a weekender bag. She took it from him and brought it into the flat.

"I just got off a plane," said Jacques, rubbing his jaw and squinting through his glasses.

"Did you take a cab from Heathrow?"

"Yes." He eyed her coldly. "Why are you here? In Theodosia's apartment?"

"I'm staying here for a bit. She gave me her keys."

"Where is she? I want to see her."

"She didn't come back last night. How did you find the flat?"

"Mrs. Sokoloff gave me the address." Jacques looked down at the floor, awkward. "It was a long flight. Could I have a glass of water?"

Eliza led the way into the kitchen. She gave him water from the tap with no ice. She had lemons in a bowl on the counter, because they fit her idea of how the flat should look, but inside the cupboards and the fridge, there was nothing Theodosia would have stocked. Eliza ate saltines and sugary peanut butter, packets of salami and chocolate bars. She hoped Jacques wouldn't ask for food.

"Where is Theo, again?" he asked.

"I told you, she isn't here."

"But, Eliza." He grabbed her arm, and for a moment she was afraid of him, afraid of his hard hands pressing the fabric of her shirt, thin and weak as he was. "Where is she instead of here?" He spoke very slowly. She hated the feel of his body close to hers.

"Don't you ever fucking touch me," she told him. "Ever. You understand?"

He let her arm drop and walked into the living room, where he draped himself on the couch without being invited. "I think you know where she is. That's all."

"She probably went to Paris for the weekend. You can go really quickly from here through the Chunnel."

"Paris?"

"I'm guessing."

"Did she tell you not to tell me where she went?"

"No. We didn't even know you were coming."

Jacques sank back in his seat. "I need to see her. I texted her, but she might have blocked me."

"She got a UK phone, with a different number."

"She doesn't answer my emails, either. That's why I came all the way here. I was hoping to talk to her."

Eliza made them some tea while Jacques phoned hotels. He had to make twelve calls before he found one with a room he could book for a few nights.

He's been arrogant enough to think Theodosia would let him stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments always appreciated!!!! really motivates me yk


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hh that was quick? i can be super slow when writing or i can be super fast, if i'm ~inspired~ uwu
> 
> i havent been to san francisco since year 4 what the heck 6 years ??? woah
> 
> i really love theodosia irl(and burr) bt w but it goes along with talented mr ripley s0 :||  
> i'm planning on drawing my designs of jacques later,maybe theo and eliza but not sure. so i'll put up a link (you can always follow my art account on instagram @pantsuiting or tumblr @taciturn-milk lmao)
> 
> also- mentions of suicide and mental illness

MID-DECEMBER, 2016  
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

Two days before she would arrive in London, Eliza was on foot, trudging up a San Francisco hill with a heavy statue of a lion in her backpack.

She adored San Francisco. It looked like Theo had said it would, hilly and quaint, yet expansive and elegant. Today Eliza had been to see the Asian Art Museum's ceramics exhibit. Her apartment's owner had recommended it.

Abigail Chung, the owner, was spare, fiftyish, and gay. She wore jeans and smoked on the porch and owned a small bookstore. Eliza paid in cash by the week for the apartment, which was on the top floor of a Victorian house. Abigail and her wife lived in the bottom two stories. She was always talking to Eliza about art history and gallery exhibits. She was very kind and seemed to view Eliza as in need of goodwill.

Today, when Eliza got home, Dolley Madison was sitting on the steps. Theo's friend from Vassar. "I got here early," said Dolley. "Whatever."

Dolley's convertible had been parked in front of her building overnight. She needed to come pick it up, but Eliza had texted her to please stay and talk.

Dolley had thick thighs, a square jaw, and sleek blonde hair that always looked the same. White skin and nude lipstick. A jock style. She'd grown up in La Jolla. She drank too much, played field hockey in high school, and had had a series of boyfriends and one girlfriend, but never love. These were all things Eliza knew about her from Martha's Vineyard.

Now Dolley stood up and nearly lost her balance.

"You okay?" Eliza asked.

"Not really."

"Have you been drinking?"

"Yes," said Dolley. "What of it?"

Night was falling.

"Let's go for a drive," said Eliza. "We can talk."

"A drive."

"It'll be nice. You have such a cute car. Let me have the keys." The car was the type of thing older men buy to convince themselves they're still sexy. The two seats were camel-coloured, the body curved and bright green. Eliza wondered if it belonged to Dolley's dad. "I can't have you drive if you've been drinking."

"What are you, the police?"

"Hardly."

"A spy?"

"Brooke."

"Seriously, are you?"

"I can't answer that."

"Ha. That's what a spy would say."

It didn't matter what Eliza said or did not say to Dolley anymore. "Let's go on a hike," said Eliza. "I' know a place in the state park. We can drive across the Golden Gate Bridge and it'll be mad scenic."

Dolley jangled her car keys in her pocket. "It's kinda late."

"Look," Eliza said, "we've had a misunderstanding about Theo, and I'm glad you came over. Let's just go somewhere neutral and talk it out. My apartment is not the best place."

"I don't know if I want to talk to you."

"You showed up early," said Eliza. "You want to talk to me."

"Okay, we'll talk it out, hug it out, all that," said Dolley. "It'll make Theo happy." She handed over the keys.

People were stupid when they drank.

• • •

Two days before Christmas it was too cold for the convertible, but the top of Dolley's car was down anyway. Dolley insisted. Eliza wore jeans, boots, and a warm wool sweater. Her backpack was in the boot, and in it were her wallet, a second sweater and a clean T-shirt, a wide-mouth water bottle, a packet of baby wipes, a black garbage bag, and the lion statue.

Dolley took a half-empty bottle of vodka out of her shoulder bag but didn't actually drink from it. She went to sleep almost immediately.

Eliza drove up through the city. By the time they got to the Golden Gate Bridge, she was antsy. The quiet drive was unnerving. She nudged Dolley awake. "The bridge," she said. "Look." It loomed above them, orange and majestic.

"People love to kill themselves on this bridge," said Dolley thickly.

"What?"

"It's the second most popular suicide bridge in the world," said Dolley. "I read it somewhere."

"What's the first?"

"A bridge on the Yangtze River. I forget the name. I read up on stuff like that," said Dolley. "People think it's poetic, to jump off a bridge. That's why they do it. Whereas, let's say, killing yourself by bleeding out in a bathtub, that's just messy. What are you supposed to wear to bleed out in a bathtub?"

"You don't wear anything."

"How do you know?"

"I just know." Eliza wished she hadn't engaged Dolley on this topic.

"I don't want people to see me naked when I'm dead!" yelled Dolley into the air beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. "But I don't want to wear clothes in the bathtub, either! It's very awkward!"

Eliza ignored her.

"Anyway, they're building a barrier now, so people can't jump," Dolley went on. "here on the Golden Gate."

They drove off the bridge in silence and turned toward the park.

Eventually Dolley added: "I shouldn't have brought that up. I don't want to give you ideas." 

"I don't have ideas."

"Don't kill yourself," said Dolley.

"I'm not killing myself."

"I'm being your friend right now, okay? Something is not normal with you."

Eliza didn't answer.

"I grew up with very normal, stable people," Dolley continued. "We acted normal all day long in my family. So normal I wanted to stab my eyes out. So I'm like an expert. And you? You are not normal. You should think about getting help for it, is what I'm saying."

"You think normal is having a shit-ton of money."

"No I don't. Vivian Weisenbachfeld is on full scholarship at Vassar and she's normal, that witch."

"You think it's normal to get what you want all the time," said Eliza. "For things to be easy. But it isn't. Most people don't get what they want, like, ever. They have doors shut in their faces. They have to strive, all the time. They don't live in your magical land of two-seater cars and perfect teeth and travelling to Italy and fur coats."

"There," said Dolley. "You proved my point."

"How?"

"It's not even normal to say stuff like that. You walked back into Theo's live after not seeing her for years, and within days you've moved into her house, you're borrowing her stuff, you're swimming in her fucking pool and letting her pay for your haircuts. You went to fucking Stanford, and boo-hoo, you lost your scholarship, but don't make out like you're some voice of the fucking ninety-nine percent. Nobody is shutting any doors on you, Eliza. Also, no one wears fur coats because, hello, that's not even ethical. I mean, maybe someone's grandma would, but not a regular person. And I have never said jack about your teeth. Sheesh. You need to learn how to relax and be a human being if you want to have any actual friends and not just people who tolerate you."

Neither of them said anything for the rest of the drive.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> afhsfshgshshhf it's a bit past 1am and i'm just so looking forward to being up all night -- i arrvied back this morning and i'm half still hyped from how wonderful it was and half really sad that it's over and i have to go back to school and my dumb routine tomorrow. but uhahdh here's hopefully a longish chapter to make up for the time 
> 
> warnings: death, blood
> 
> hope you like

They parked, and Eliza got her backpack from the trunk. She took the gloves out of her jeans pocket and pot them on. "Let's leave our phones in the trunk," she said.

Dolley looked at her for a long minute. "Yeah, fine. We're getting our nature on," she said, slurring her speech. They locked up the phones and Eliza pocketed the car keys. They checked the sign on the edge of the parking lot. Hiking trails were marked in several colours.

"Let's go to the lookout," Eliza said, pointing to the trail marked in blue. "I've been there before."

"Whatever," said Dolley.

"It was a four-mile hike round-trip. The park was nearly empty because of the cold and the Christmas season, but a few families were leaving as the day came to a close. Tired kids were whining or being carried. Once Dolley and Eliza began heading uphill, the path was empty.

Eliza felt her pulse increase. She led the way.

"You have a thing for Theo," said Dolley, breaking the silence. "Don't think that makes you special. Everyone has a thing for Theo."

"She's my best friend. That's not the same as having a thing," said Eliza.

"She's no one's best friend. She's a heartbreaker."

"Don't be mean about her. You're just mad she hasn't texted you."

"She has texted me. That's not the point," said Dolley. "Listen. When we made friends freshman year, Theo was in my dorm room all the time: in the morning, bringing me a latte before class; dragging me out to movies the film department was screening; wanting to borrow earrings; bringing me Goldfish crackers because she knew I liked them."

Eliza didn't say anything.

Theo had dragged her out to movies. Theo had bought her chocolate. Theo had brought her coffee in bed, when they lived together.

Dolley went on: "She'd come by every Tuesday and Thursday because we had this early-morning Italian class. And at first, I wouldn't even be awake. She'd have to wait while I got my clothes on. My roommate bitched because Theo was in there so early, so I started setting my phone. I'd get up and be standing outside the door before Theo got there."

"And then one day, she didn't come. It was early November, I think. And you know what? She never came again after that. She never brought me a latte or dragged me to the movies. She'd switched over to Vivian Weisenbachfeld. And you know what? I could have been all grade-school about it, Eliza. I could have gotten huffy and acted like, ooh, poor me because you can't have two best friends and wah, wah, wah. But I didn't. I was nice to the two of them. And we were all friends. And it was fine."

"Okay."

Eliza hated this story. She hated, too, how she had never understood before that the reason Vivian and Dolley disliked each other was Theodosia herself.

Dolley went on: "What I'm saying is, Theodosia broke Vivian's little heart, too. Later. And Aaron Burr's. She led all these different guys on when she was going out with Aaron, and Aaron, of course, got all jealous and insecure. Then Theo was surprised when he broke up with her-but what did she expect, when she hooked up with other guys? She wanted to see if people would lose their cool and obsess over her. And you know what? That is exactly what you've done, and exactly what a lot of people did in college. That's something Theo lives, because it makes her feel awesome and sexy, but then you don't get to be friends any longer. The other way to handle it is, you prove yourself a bigger person. Theodosia knows you're as strong as she is, or maybe even stronger. Then she respects you, and you go on together."

Eliza was silent. This was a new version of the Aaron Burr story, Aaron of the Bronx, Coates and Morrison, the poems left on Theodosia's bicycle, the possible pregnancy. Hadn't Theo looked up at him with wide eyes? She'd been infatuated and then disillusioned-but only after he'd dumped her. It didn't seem possible she had stepped out on him.

Then, suddenly, it did seem possible. It seemed obvious to Eliza now that Theodosia-who had felt shallow and second-rate next to Burr's intellect and masculinity-would have made herself feel stronger and more powerful than he was by betraying him.

They kept walking through the woods.

The sun began to set.

There was no one else on the path.

"You want to be like Theo, then be like her. Fine," Dolley said. They had reached a walkway over a ravine. It led to wooden steps built up to a lookout tower that gave a view of the deep valley and the surrounding hillsides. "But you're not Theodosia, you understand?"

"I know I'm not Theodosia."

"I'm not sure you do," said Dolley.

"None of that is your business."

"Maybe I've made it your business. Maybe I think you're unstable and the best thing would be for you to back away from Theo and get some help for your mental problems."

"Tell me this. Why are we out here?" asked Eliza. She stood on the steps above Dolley.

Below them was the ravine. The sun was nearly down.

"Why are we out here, I asked," Eliza said. She said it lightly, swinging her backpack off her shoulder and opening it as if to get out her water bottle.

"We're going to talk it out, like you said. I want you to stop dicking around with Theo's life, living off her trust fund, making her ignore her friends, and whatever else you're doing."

"I asked you why we're out here," said Eliza, bent over her backpack.

Dolley shrugged. "Here exactly? In this park? You drove us here."

"Right."

Eliza hefted the bag that held the lion statue from the Asian Art Museum. She swung once, hard, coming down on Dolley's forehead with a horrid crack.

The statue didn't break.

Dolley's head snapped back. She stumbled on the wooden walkway.

Eliza moved forward and hit her again. This time from the side. Blood spurted from Dolley's head. It splattered across Eliza's face.

Dolley collapsed against the railing, her hands clutching the wooden bars.

Eliza dropped the statue and went at Dolley low. She grabbed her around the knees. Dolley kicked out and hit Eliza in the shoulder, scrabbling with her hands to regain her grip on the railing. She kicked hard, and Eliza's shoulder popped out, dislocating with a jolt of pain.

Fuck.

Eliza's vision went white for a minute. She lost hold of Dolley, and with her left arm hanging lame, locked her right arm and slammed it up under Dolley's forearms, making Dolley let go of the railing. Then she bent over and went in low again. She got Dolley's legs, which scrabbled on the ground, grabbed them, got her good shoulder underneath Dolley's body, and lurched her up and over.

Everything was still.

Dolley's silken blonde hair plummeted.

There was a dull crack as her body hit the tops of the trees, and another as she landed at the bottom of the rocky ravine.

Eliza leaned over the railing. The body was invisible beneath the green.

She looked around. Still no one on the path.

Her shoulder was dislocated. It hurt so much she couldn't think straight.

She hadn't bargained on an injury. If she couldn't move her dislocated arm, she was going to fail, because Dolley was dead and her blood was everywhere and Eliza had to change clothes. Now.

Eliza forced herself to calm her breathing. Forced her eyes to focus.

Holding her left wrist with her right hand, she lifted the left arm up in a J-movement, pulling away from the body. Once, twice-God, it hurt-but on the third try, the left shoulder popped back in.

The pain disappeared.

Eliza had seen a guy do that once, in a martial arts gym. She had asked him about it.

All right, then. She looked down at her sweater. It was splattered with blood. She pulled it off. The shirt undernearth was wet, too. She yanked her shirt off and used a clean corner of it to wipe her hands and face. She pulled off her gloves. She took the baby wipes from her backpack and cleaned herself up-chest, arms, neck, hands-shivering in the winter air. She shoved the bloody clothes and wipes into the black garbage bag, tied it shut, and tucked everything into the backpack.

She put on the clean shirt and the clean sweater.

There was blood on the bag that held the statue.

Eliza pulled that bag off and turned it inside out so the blood was inside. She put the statue in the backpack and stuffed the dirty bag into her wide-mouth water bottle.

She used the wipes to take spots of blood off the walkway, then stuffed all her trash into the water bottle, too.

She looked around.

The path was empty.

Eliza touched her shoulder gingerly. It was okay. She washed her face, ears, and hair four more times with wipes, wishing she'd remembered to bring a compact mirror. She looked over the edge of the bridge, into the ravine.

She could not see Dolley.

She hiked back out along the trail. She felt she could walk forever and never get tired. She saw no one on the path until near the entrance, where she passed four sporty guys wearing Santa hats and holding flashlights, starting up the trail marked in yellow.

At the car, Eliza paused.

It should stay here. If she drove it anywhere, it wouldn't make sense when people found Dolley's body in the ravine.

Carefully, she got inside. She took out the wipes and began to rub down the emergency brake, then stopped.

No, no. That was the wrong plan. Why hadn't she thought it through before? It would look bad if there were zero prints in the car. Dolley's prints _should_ be there. It would seem odd, now that the brake was clean.

Think. Think. The bottle of vodka lay on the floor of the passenger seat. Eliza picked it up with a wipe and unscrewed the cap. Then she poured some of the vodka onto the brake, as if it had spilled accidentally. Maybe that would make it seem legit that there were no prints there. She had no idea if crime scene investigators looked at that sort of thing. She didn't know what they looked at, actually.

Damn.

She got out of the car. She forced herself to think logically. Her own prints weren't on file anywhere. She had no criminal record. Police would be able to tell that someone else had driven the car, if they looked-but they wouldn't know it was Eliza.

There was no evidence that anyone named Elizabeth Schuyler had every lived in or visited the city of San Francisco.

She popped the trunk and took Dolley's phone out, as well as her own. Then, still shaking, she locked the car and walked away.

It was a cold night. Eliza walked quickly to stay warm. A mile on foot from the park and she was feeling calmer. HSe dumped the water bottle into a trash can by the side of the road. Fatther down, she tossed the bloody clothes in their black plastic bag deep into a dumpster.

Then she kept walking.

The Golden Gate Bridge was ablaze against the night sky. Eliza was small beneath it but felt as if a spotlight shone on her from above. She hurled Dolley's car keys and phone out over the side of the bridge and into the water.

Her life was cinematic. She looked superb in the light from the streetlamps. After the fight, her cheeks were flushed. Bruises were forming underneath her clothes, but her hair looked excellent. And oh, her clothes were so very flattering. Yes, it was true that she was criminally violent. Brutal, even. But that was her job and she was uniquely qualified for it, so it was sexy.

The moon was a crescent and the wind harsh. Eliiza sucked in big lungfuls of air and breathed the glamour and pain and beauty of the action-hero life.

Back in the apartment, she took the lion statue out of her backpack and poured bleach on it. Then she ran the shower on it, dried it, and placed it on the mantel.

Theodosia would have liked that statue. She loved cats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't want to beg for comments and interaction becasuse then maybe 1 person would comment 1ce and i would be sad, or no one would respond at all and i'd be sad again whoop but like it would be really nice, just to know that a person is actually reading this or if i'm just doing it for myself? and i do enjoy writing it but it.s not fun to realise you're just talking to yourself yk lmao
> 
> thank hfhshgh


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